Parabolic Figures or Narrative Fictions?: Seminal Essays on the Stories of Jesus

Hedrick contends that parables do not teach moral and religious lessons; they are not, in whole or part, theological figures for the church. Rather, parables are realistic narrative fictions that like all effective fiction literature are designed to draw readers into story worlds where they make discoveries about themselves by finding their ideas challenged and subverted--or affirmed.

The parables have endings but not final resolutions, because the endings raise new complications for carefu...