C.H. Dodd also defines it similarly: “At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” [C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Scribner, 1961), 5]
We, modern readers, also must unread certain texts in the New Testament. Among others, some of the post-Pauline texts may be good cases that involve repressive social relations, which are expressed with the so-called household codes: regulating various household relationships between master and slave, between husband and wife, and between parents and children. Women’s subordinate position in 1 Tim 2:11-15 is also a good case. In all of these household codes or in women's degradation texts, one has to read, reread, and unread the texts because the ultimate meaning is not controlled by the past or by any authorities today. Interpretation is a politically self-conscious business in that one has to take a stance. Namely, abusive or sexist texts should be named and rejected. In the stages of reading and rereading, one has to ask why these seemingly unnecessary texts for today’s readers are there in the early church. This process will help readers to see what happened in the past and to engage us in critical contexts then and today.
Another text is 1 Cor 14:33b-36, which is considered “interpolation” (meaning an inserted text by the later editor of the church, possibly much time after Paul’s death, as we see similar kinds of texts in 1 Tim 2:11-15. Except for this particular passage, Paul’s overall letters (I mean his undisputed letters, a total of 7 of them) do not have women degradation passages. Rather, the opposite is the case that Paul calls a woman apostle (Rom 16:7); also Gal 3:28 is radical in terms of gender relation. So readers have to unread 1 Cor 14:33b-36 because it is not Paul’s voice or theology.
When it comes to the Gospels, I may think of one particular place; Mark 9:1 will be a different case that readers have to read, reread, unread, and tell their positions. While some consider it as Jesus’s own saying, others render it Markan addition or creation. In either case, readers have to struggle to understand what it means to hear this apocalyptic saying in the first century CE and now. Eventually, one must decide about this text and interpret it for today’s world by unreading all previous interpretations. I think this text is more technical in nature so it may not be easy to come to a conclusion.
In Resurrecting Jesus: The Renewal of New Testament Theology, I attempted to show how to read the New Testament and what it means to read it today. I focused on the historical Jesus on one hand and the New Testament as a literary product on the other.
Regarding a critical understanding of biblical interpretation, my book Biblical Interpretation: Theory, Process, and Criteria will be helpful.