Religious Themes in Film © Matthew Albright
- Lesson 1: Introduction and Lord of the Rings I
- Lesson 3: The Matrix I: What is this movie trying to say?
- Lesson 4: The Matrix II: Zion, Trinity, and Christ
- Lesson 5: Star Wars: The Godfather of Archetype Films
- Lesson 6: The Stigmata: Pains of Grace and Gnostic Scripture
- Lesson 8: The Omen and The Prophecy: It’s the end of the world as we know it.
Lesson 3: The Matrix I: What is this movie trying to say?
For Thought
In what other ways can you think of where Neo’s journey parallels that of Christ?
Neo performs many miracles, and gains in self-confidence, while fighting. Jesus, of course, does not perform his miracles this way. In fact, he preaches just the opposite of fighting. He preaches that one should turn the other cheek and love the enemy. Only in this way can the enemy be disarmed and made powerless. Christ’s “final battle” is one of surrender and sacrifice, and through that sacrifice he is victorious over death. Christ’s final battle is much more similar to Luke Skywalkers than to Neo’s. As we will see in the Star Wars lesson, Luke Skywalker conquers the Dark Side of the Force by laying down his light saber and surrendering, rather than killing and giving into vengeance. Are there other places where parallels to Christ fall short in The Matrix trilogy? Bibliography
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Beck, Peggy V., Anna Lee Walters, and Nia Francisco. The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. Tsaile, Arizona: Dine College Bookstore/Press, 2002. Bowker, John, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, ed. The Jerome Biblical Commentary. New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc., 1968. Buck, William, ed. Ramayana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. Dalley, Stephanie, ed. Myths from Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Frazer, James G. The Golden Bough. New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1981. Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews, Vol I. James L. Kugel, trans. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Herzberg, Max J. Classical Myths. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1954. Matt, Daniel C. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism. Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1997. Meeks, Wayne A., ed. The HarperCollins Study Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Milton, John. Paradise Lost. New York: Rinehart & Co. Inc., 1951.
Rosenberg, Donna, ed. World Mythology. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group, 1994. Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Schultz, Joseph. Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law. Jewish Quarterly Review 61: 1970/71. Tedlock, Dennis, trans. Popol Vuh. New York: Touchstone, 1985.
Vergil. The Aeneid. New York: Bantam Books, 1961. Waite, A.E. The Holy Kabbalah: A Study of the Secret Tradition in Israel. Hertfordshire, England. 1996.
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