[dsc]

“And well enough He didn’t say it that way. It would be passing strange to explicitly label an obvious metaphor so awkwardly and academically”

At the very least it was translated from Greek or Aramaic to Latin, then to an antique form of English.

I was a professional translator for over 20 years, and I have seen how the translation of even a commonplace idiom can become very strange, particularly if a committee is working on it.

It’s not strange that the phrasing is stilted; in fact, I would be suspicious if it were not. These words were chosen because they best transmit the intended meaning, stilted or not. Clarity, not poetry.

“and quite alien to Jesus’ style of communication”

So, you guys were hanging, shooting the bull in Aramaic, were you?

“I’m not the one to blame for the existence of direct metaphors.”

So, many of His disciples fled and never came back because they suffer from a morbid fear of direct metaphors?

[Springfield Reformer]

At the very least it was translated from Greek or Aramaic to Latin, then to an antique form of English.

Perhaps, but it's the Greek original that has the direct metaphor:

Τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου, τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον• τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν.

(Source: The New Testament in the original Greek: Byzantine Textform 2005, with morphology. (2006). . Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.)

"This is the body of me, the [one] on the behalf of you (plural) being given. You do this for [the purpose of] my remembrance."

So you see the direct metaphor here is indisputable, at least linguistically. It is a simple linkage of the bread with His body using "estin,' the verb of being, just as it would be done in English.  This not an obscure idiom. It is the sort of thing any first year student of Biblical Greek would recognize. It is a form of special pleading to insist without warrant that it be given a meaning beyond the ordinary use of such a common structure.  

I also find it interesting that in the subsequent explanatory clause they were told why they were to do this. It is a statement of purpose, not for the sacrifice of Christ soon to come, but for the meal itself. And that purpose was not the transmission of some partial distribution of grace, as though it were some sort of substance flowing from God to us. Rather, the stated purpose ... is to remember our Lord Jesus Christ.  If He is there in the substance itself, then the meal is not a memory, a looking back to, but a direct experience of the Godhead. But Jesus says its for remembering. If it had some other purpose, He didn't say it.  At least not here. Maybe Zwingli had it right after all.

As for Jesus' style of communication, it should be obvious to you I am discerning that from the text. If you think it helps your cause to suggest otherwise, then so be it. But the text is resplendent with the color and vibrancy of Jesus' teaching.  He used metaphor fluently and unobtrusively in almost every public communication. He taught by the most memorable and powerful of analogies, images and words that still have wide currency in our culture.  He wove his metaphors seamlessly into the flow of every subtheme of his overarching message. There is no committee intervening between us and these words of Jesus. They come to us directly from the inspired pens of the apostolic authors. These are the words given by the Holy Spirit of God Almighty. They are worth listening to.

Peace,

SR