Now that you know this, do you still see the film the same way? #matrix — Transcript

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1. 0:00On the bridge of Morpheus's ship there
2. 0:02is a small metal plate. Almost nobody
3. 0:04notices it. It reads Mark 3 number 11.
4. 0:08[music]
5. 0:10Open a Bible to the Gospel of Mark
6. 0:12chapter 3 verse 11.
7. 0:15And unclean spirits when they saw him
8. 0:17fell down before him and cried saying
9. 0:20thou art the son of God.
10. 0:22That plate is not alone. The Matrix is
11. 0:25full of scripture [music] hidden in
12. 0:26names, numbers, a license plate, a death
13. 0:30and a resurrection. Tonight we follow
14. 0:32every one of them [music] and at the end
15. 0:34I will show you the strangest part. The
16. 0:37moment the film quietly turns the Bible
17. 0:39upside down.
18. 0:41Start with the ship itself.
19. 0:43The Nebuchadnezzar.
20. 0:45Nebuchadnezzar was a king of Babylon.
21. 0:47In the book of Daniel he wakes from a
22. 0:49dream he cannot remember [music] and it
23. 0:51torments him.
24. 0:52I have dreamed a dream and my spirit was
25. 0:55troubled to know the dream.
26. 0:57A man troubled by a dream he cannot
27. 0:59recall.
28. 1:00That is Neo in the first minutes of the
29. 1:02film. And in the second film when the
30. 1:04ship is destroyed Morpheus echoes the
31. 1:06king. He had dreamed a dream and now
32. 1:09that dream is gone.
33. 1:11But there is an irony.
34. 1:13Nebuchadnezzar is the king who destroyed
35. 1:15Jerusalem, Zion and carried its people
36. 1:17away to Babylon. The rebels named their
37. 1:20ship after the enemy of their own city.
38. 1:22Unless [music] that is the point.
39. 1:24In Daniel chapter 4 the same king loses
40. 1:27his mind and lives like an animal until
41. 1:29he lifts his eyes to heaven and his
42. 1:31understanding [music]
43. 1:32returns. The king of the prison is the
44. 1:34first one to wake up.
45. 1:36Now look at the names.
46. 1:38They were chosen.
47. 1:40Neo.
48. 1:41Rearrange the letters and you get one.
49. 1:43The one the prophecy is waiting for.
50. 1:45[music] His name inside the Matrix
51. 1:47Thomas Anderson.
52. 1:49Thomas the disciple who doubted until he
53. 1:51could touch the wounds. And Neo spends
54. 1:54the whole film doubting he is the one.
55. 1:56Anderson from the Greek andros man, son
56. 2:00of man, the title Jesus used for
57. 2:02himself. His guide is Morpheus, a man
58. 2:06who spends his life announcing that the
59. 2:07one will come, [music] like John the
60. 2:09Baptist in the desert, preparing the
61. 2:11way. The woman who believes in him first
62. 2:13is called Trinity, and the last human
63. 2:16city carries the oldest holy name of
64. 2:18[music] all, Zion. Babylon and Zion, the
65. 2:22prison and the promised [music] land.
66. 2:24The whole story stands on those two
67. 2:26words.
68. 2:27Then the film tells a gospel, almost
69. 2:30scene by scene.
70. 2:31In the opening, a man named Choi pays
71. 2:34Neo for a disc and says, Hallelujah,
72. 2:37you're my savior, man, my own personal
73. 2:39Jesus Christ.
74. 2:41[music] It sounds like a joke. It is a
75. 2:43sign post. Morpheus offers a choice,
76. 2:45[music] two pills. Deuteronomy chapter
77. 2:4830, I have set before you life and
78. 2:50death, therefore choose [music] life.
79. 2:53Neo chooses, and he is flushed out of
80. 2:56his pod into dark water, pulled up,
81. 2:58naked, newborn, a baptism. At the end,
82. 3:02he is shot dead in room 303. Moments
83. 3:05later, he rises. He stops the bullets,
84. 3:08sees the code beneath the world, and in
85. 3:10the final shot, he ascends into the sky.
86. 3:13Death, resurrection, ascension. And the
87. 3:16film opened in American theaters in the
88. 3:18week of Easter 1999. Its first weekend
89. 3:21ended on Easter Sunday.
90. 3:24Every gospel needs [music] a Judas.
91. 3:26This one is called Cipher.
92. 3:28He sells out his brothers at a dinner,
93. 3:30[music] steak and wine, and asks for one
94. 3:33reward, to forget, to be put back
95. 3:36inside, rich, important, remembering
96. 3:39nothing. [music]
97. 3:40His whole philosophy fits in three
98. 3:42words, ignorance [music] is bliss. The
99. 3:45Bible wrote the same idea the other way
100. 3:47around, the Book of Ecclesiastes, in
101. 3:50much wisdom is much grief, [music] and
102. 3:52he that increaseth knowledge increaseth
103. 3:54sorrow. Cipher read that verse with his
104. 3:57life and chose [music] the comfort of
105. 3:59forgetting.
106. 4:00And the enemy,
107. 4:01Agent Smith.
108. 4:03In the second film, Smith arrives in a
109. 4:05black car.
110. 4:06Its license plate reads I-S5416.
111. 4:10[music]
112. 4:11Isaiah chapter 54 verse 16.
113. 4:14Behold, I have created the Smith that
114. 4:17bloweth the coals in the fire, and I
115. 4:19have created the waster to destroy.
116. 4:22A Smith created by the one in charge,
117. 4:25made to destroy. [music] That is exactly
118. 4:27what Agent Smith is. Then he multiplies
119. 4:30his copy in everybody until a whole city
120. 4:33wears one face. In the Gospel of Mark, a
121. 4:36spirit is asked its name and answers,
122. 4:38"My name is Legion, for we are many."
123. 4:41Around them, the sequels keep naming
124. 4:43angels. Seraph, the guardian of the
125. 4:45Oracle, is named after the highest order
126. 4:48of angels, [music] the burning ones. The
127. 4:50Merovingian, named after a royal dynasty
128. 4:52that a modern legend tied to a holy
129. 4:54bloodline, rules over exiled programs,
130. 4:57cast out like fallen angels. And the
131. 5:00architect tells Neo that this is the
132. 5:02sixth version of the Matrix. In Genesis,
133. 5:05man is made on the sixth day.
134. 5:08In the last film, Neo is blinded,
135. 5:11and only then does he truly see [music]
136. 5:13the world as pure light.
137. 5:15As the man healed in the Gospel of John
138. 5:17said, "Whereas I [music] was blind, now
139. 5:20I see."
140. 5:21He walks into the city of the machines
141. 5:23and bargains with its ruler, a face made
142. 5:25of a swarm of machines. The credits give
143. 5:28it a name, Deus Ex Machina, God from the
144. 5:31machine. He takes the enemy into
145. 5:34himself. Light bursts out of his body.
146. 5:37His arms lie open as if on a cross, and
147. 5:39the machines carry him away. [music] The
148. 5:41war ends. Peace paid for by one death.
149. 5:45Even the Oracle's line sounds like the
150. 5:47last book of the Bible. Everything that
151. 5:49has a beginning [music] has an end. In
152. 5:51Revelation, "I am Alpha and Omega, the
153. 5:54beginning and the end."
154. 5:56So, is the Matrix a Christian film?
155. 6:00This is where it gets strange. In the
156. 6:02Bible, God creates the world and calls
157. 6:04it good. the Matrix, the world was built
158. 6:07by an architect and it is a prison.
159. 6:10Salvation does not come from trusting
160. 6:12the world, it comes from knowing it is
161. 6:14false. That is not Orthodox
162. 6:16Christianity. It is older [music] and
163. 6:19far more dangerous. In the first
164. 6:21centuries, groups called the Gnostics
165. 6:23taught almost exactly this, that a
166. 6:25lesser creator trapped souls in a false
167. 6:27material world and that a messenger
168. 6:29would come with gnosis, [music]
169. 6:31knowledge, to wake them up. Add
170. 6:33Buddhism, add Greek myth, add Plato's
171. 6:36cave. [music] The Matrix does not retell
172. 6:38the Bible, it remixes it. Asked how much
173. 6:41of the religious imagery was
174. 6:42intentional, the Wachowskis reportedly
175. 6:44gave a two-word answer, all of it.
176. 6:47But there is one verse the film never
177. 6:49shows [music]
178. 6:51and it may be the whole film in one
179. 6:53sentence.
180. 6:54The letter to the Ephesians, chapter 5,
181. 6:57verse [music] 14.
182. 6:58Awake thou that sleepest and arise from
183. 7:01the dead and Christ shall give thee
184. 7:03light.
185. 7:062,000 years before a screen told Neo to
186. 7:09wake up, it was already written.
187. 7:12Which of these references had you never
188. 7:13noticed and which one do you think is
189. 7:15pure coincidence? Tell me in the
190. 7:18comments
191. 7:19and wake up.
192. 7:20>> [music]