"It’s hard to imagine what it would mean to be a human without history, and yet, historical consciousness is something that only [recently] developed within history. ...For the Jews invented history as we know it. They were the first to rise above the stream of time, and view history as having a definitive direction. ...Only with the Hebrew approach to history did mankind begin to discern a “direction” in history, and with it, a sense of history’s purpose. That is, for the first time, history was seen as trying to “get somewhere”."
-Robert Godwin (www.onecosmos.blogspot.com)