U.S. - A well-known historical-critical scholar announced a stunning find Friday morning that is expected to send shock waves reverberating throughout Christendom: the plot of the New Testament was lifted in part directly from the Wachowski brothers' smash-hit 1999 film The Matrix, he claims.

"While Christians have come to think of ideas like resurrection, a messiah-like figure, and the Trinity as unique to their faith, I have found, in fact, that the Bible has liberally borrowed from movies like The Matrix, and to a lesser extent, Superman II and Alien 3," Dr. Gary Essex said in an interview on NPR.

"What we find when we look objectively at the written record is that the Bible parallels earlier sources quite closely," Essex added, explaining that he took extensive notes while watching a VHS copy of The Matrix unearthed at a local rummage sale. "Where the Wachowskis had created this intricate mythology surrounding a foretold chosen One who sacrifices himself to free humanity, the Jewish writers of the New Testament seem to have latched onto these concepts and adapted them to fit their own purposes."

"And the writers of the Scriptures weren't even subtle about their shameless borrowing - going so far as to steal many names wholesale right out of the classic kung-fu action film, like Thomas, Nebuchaddnezzar, and Zion."