Neo and Jesus

The most obvious connection between the movie and Christianity is that Neo is a definite Jesus figure.  The first thing that made me notice this was a very subtle piece of dialogue.  It occurs very early in the movie when the group of people comes to Neo’s room to get the disk.  The man, after receiving the disk, utters the following: “You’re my savior man, my own personal Jesus Christ.”   It is my opinion that the guy had no knowledge of what was going to happen to Neo in the future, but he is the first to put the thought of Neo being a Jesus figure in the viewer’s head.

Things move quickly from there.  Neo is surprised by a phone call in the middle of the night and after picking up he soon finds out that it is Morphues.  Morpheus offers yet another connection to Jesus when he refers to Neo as “the one.”  Morpheus believes that Neo is the only one who can save human kind and the city of Zion.  This is just like Jesus being the only one who can save mankind.

The next connections I see stem from Neo’s meeting with the Oracle.  This is really the turning point where there are a group of people that think that Neo is not the one and there is another group, led by Morpheus, that is convinced that Neo is the one.  This is very similar to Jesus in that when Jesus’ life on Earth was near the end, there were those who believed that Jesus was our savior and those who thought the he was just another guy pretending to be our savior.

Another thing that Neo learns from the Oracle is that he is going to have to make the choice of whether or not he should give up his own life in order to save others.  Neo thinks about it for a second but is then willing to go back into the matrix and risk his life in order to save Morpheus.  Jesus prays to God and asks him if him dying is the only way to save everyone.  After Jesus realizes that it is the only way, he is willing and ready to sacrifice himself as well.           

The last connection that I saw between the two deals with their deaths and what happens to them after they die.  Neo struggles with the agents, fighting as hard as he can to get out of the matrix.  Jesus was in a struggle with the guards, trying to get off of the cross.  Then both die, and we expect their lives to be over.  However, after lying on the ground dead for a short time, Neo wakes up and after being placed in a tomb for three days, Jesus is resurrected.

Cypher and Judas

The character Cypher is in my opinion one of the most interesting in the movie.  He is one of those squirrelly fellows who you do not know whether to trust or not because of some of the things he says.  It hit me that Cypher may be a bad guy when he sat with Neo and started to basically scare him by saying what a big job it was to “save the world.”  His life is an almost direct parallel to that of what is known about Judas. 

The chief priests and elders had been looking for someone to point out the man who was claiming to be the messiah.  They went to Judas to have a talk with him because they knew he was a friend of Jesus.  Judas was offered a few pieces of silver to betray Jesus and turn him over to the priests.  He accepts the offering and willingly points Jesus out to the priests.

A very similar thing happened to Cypher in The Matrix.  The agents bring Cypher into the matrix and treat him to a steak dinner.  At the dinner they tell him what they want, codes for the Zion mainframe, and Cypher responds that the only person that knows the codes is Morpheus.  The agents offer Cypher a place back in the original matrix and promise him that he will not remember a thing.  Cypher, like Judas, agrees to the terms and he helps the agents get Morpheus.

The Others

Like I stated earlier, almost all of the characters can be match up with someone who they share similar qualities with in the Christian religion. I went in-depth with two of these connections, but many other people have done more extensive research on this topic and have come up with some amazing things. Follow this link to visit the sites of some people that I have found that talk more about Christianity and The Matrix.

The Others