The Reformed Ninja

Many in the Eastern Orthodox Church will make the claim that the hyperbolic ascriptions given to Mary are simply metaphors. As such, when Mary is called in the Akathist Hymn dedicated to her a “propitiation for the whole world,” it is explained away as meaning something other than what it is saying . The problem with this is typically defined by the Orthodox as being that Protestants simply do not understand how metaphor works. In short, Protestants are too obtuse. There is, however, another possibility, and that is that Eastern Orthodox Christianity teaches falsely about Mary, and explains away their obvious errors by calling them “metaphors” in order to avoid the painful reality that they have departed from the truth as given in the clear witness of holy Scripture. In order to get a better picture of the situation, it could be helpful to look at the manner in which Scripture uses metaphor. One famous example given in the Bible is that of Jesus being a ransom . This metaphor is based