Asked and answered in previous discussion. The short form is:
1) that’s a circular argument. You are entering as evidence of non-metaphoric usage, passages that most certainly DO meet the criteria for metaphor, and which others before us and well before the Reformation have read as metaphor. Logically, you can’t use them as evidence when they are the very passages you are trying to prove something about. That’s called begging the question, baking a predetermined answer into the formulation of the question.
2) It doesn’t matter whether there are any other examples besides those that describe the Lord’s Supper. Metaphor does not rely on a particular conjugation of verb or the presence or absence of possessive pronouns. It is a nearly universal function of human psychology. All that is needed is a comparison of two domains not normally associated with each other. The verb of being “to be” links the two domains, and the mind starts looking for the metaphorical relationship.
A simple example in English: A proud Grampa looks at his beloved granddaughter and says “This is my little angel.” Does any reasonable listener think he is speaking of a small, non-human, angelic being? Or do they know, from the combination of physical and verbal cues, he is using a metaphor to describe his wonderful granddaughter? Of course they know.
But somehow, when we come to this passage, even though the same structure is there, the same kind of physical and verbal cues, we get this big fight. It makes no sense. I truly believe no one would find this the least bit controversial if there were not some deep seated resistance to the lesson of the metaphor.
Peace,
SR
Amen bro.
Yet I'm examining the only passages, as I recall, where the Messiah is recorded saying "This is my". I will allow that some regard this next passage as metaphor, that the Messiah does not mean what he said literally, though I take him literally at his word, that this is his commandment. Of course if I undertook to make a new version of Christianity from the ground up I would be likely to err despite my best intentions. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
John, Catholic chapter fifteen, Protestant verses twelve to fifteen,
as authorized, but not authored, by King James.
everyone understands metaphor...not everyone is sitting at a table, facing death and is the Son of God....