Modern biblical scholarship embraces the ""historical critical" method, which views scripture as merely an historical text to be scientifically dissected and analyzed. There's some value to this approach, but it downplays and even denies the Bible's sacred dimension. French philosopher Paul Ricoeur offers us a way of reading scripture that takes the historical critical method seriously while also reawakening a sense of mystery and wonder at the Bible as a God-breathed document. He calls this approach the "second naivete."