Commentary: The Story of Jesus is an Allegory for Neo from The Matrix

As one of the best-selling books of all time, it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone has heard of the Bible and is familiar with its story. But what if I told you that this page-turner saga—chock full of exhilarating tales about murder, betrayal, plague, and battle with evil incarnate—actually has a deeper meaning to it? Believe it or not, folks, if you take a closer look at the symbolism within the Bible’s New Testament it becomes clear that the whole thing is a thinly veiled metaphor for the 1999 science fiction blockbuster The Matrix.

Now you might want to dismiss this as just another crazy Bible fan theory, but bear with me for a second. Let’s talk about the central story of the New Testament: the story of Jesus Christ. Even before he comes onto the scene there are many prophets who have been predicting the coming of a savior. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s taken directly from The Matrix when the Oracle foretells Neo coming to save mankind from the machines. And that’s just the beginning!

Look at the death of Jesus, for example. This is where the Bible starts to get pretty obvious with its allegory. First, Jesus is betrayed by Judas, a supposed friend, when Judas identifies him to the Roman soldiers in exchange for a bag of silver coins. Just try to tell me with a straight face that Judas’s actions aren’t a deliberate allusion to Cypher betraying Neo and their team as part of a deal with the machines. Throughout the whole ordeal Jesus knows that he will have to die to save humanity, and in the end he willingly does so. Hmm…that sorta rings a bell, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s clearly drawn from the part in the Matrix where Neo goes back to save Morpheus, knowing full well that the Oracle had prophesized he would die if he did so. Jesus has to sacrifice himself to absolve mankind from its sins in reference to the way Neo had to sacrifice himself to keep the machines from obtaining the Zion mainframe codes!

Then we come to resurrection. It’s well documented that after Agent Smith kills Neo he remains dead for 72 seconds before rising to show that he is “The One”: the savior of humanity. In the Bible Jesus rises after 3 days—72 hours—to show that he is the savior of humanity. Coincidence? Yeah, right. The writers of the Bible are doing all this on purpose to spell out in big flashing letters that Jesus Christ is a Neo metaphor. Do you think it’s an accident that Jesus ascends into Heaven at the end of the New Testament, kinda like the way Neo flies upward at the end of The Matrix? Or that the person who doubts Jesus is named Thomas, the name Neo goes by when he doubts that he is “The One”?

I could go on about how the sin plaguing humanity in the Old Testament is an allegory for the war with the machines prior to Neo’s arrival, or how the Father, Son and Holy Ghost—a.k.a. the Trinity—is a clear reference to the name of Neo’s love interest, but by now I think one thing is abundantly clear. The story of Jesus is a grand allegory meant to reframe the Wachowskis’ seminal sci-fi hit, and in doing so it makes us take another look at the deeper philosophy behind The Matrix.