The Human Link In the religion of today’s Christianity as well as the mythology of the ancient Greeks, believers had a person to look up to as heroes other than the gods themselves. Neither the Christian faith nor Greek mythology is complete with only belief in God or gods. In Christianity there was Moses who set the Israelites free from Egyptian oppression, and in Greek mythology there was Hercules, the most admired hero of Greece. These heroes, whose tales all provide believers with a stronger link to the all-powerful beings by presenting interactions closer to human life than just purely supernatural occurrences, share some similarities as well as differences. Moses is the man who set the Israelites free from the oppression of the Egyptian Pharaoh. He was but an ordinary man by birth. However, throughout his entire tale, Moses was the only one with the privilege of having direct contact with God. He was called upon to carry out God’s plan to bring the Israelites back to Canaan by God, Himself, in the form of a burning bush. God bid Moses to part the seas for the Israelites to walk through and close them upon the Pharaoh and Egyptian army. After Moses’ and the Israelites’ flee from Egypt, Moses is the one to talk with God upon Mount Sinai where he is given the Ten Commandments. In all senses, Moses was their hero; he helped them gain their freedom back and was their only link to and mediator with God. It was through Moses that the Israelites received their gifts from God, such as the ability to defeat the warring Amalekite people, and was saved from His wrath, such as when the Israelites went against the Ten Commandments and worshipped a golden calf. For Christianity followers, Moses, an ordinary man who did extraordinary things, served as a connection to God which made Him seem slightly less intangible and inconceivable, and gave Him more of a connection to the human race. Hercules, although by birth was the son of Zeus, spent his days on Earth with the people of Greece. His strength was unmatched and had unwavering confidence in his own abilities. Although he often acted on impulse before fully thinking of the consequences his actions might incur, he was always more than willing to take punishments for any of his own wrongdoings. This was shown in the tale of “The Twelve Labors of Hercules.” However, it was his personality, his willingness to show penitence for his actions, which endeared him to the Greeks. He had several encounters with the gods, often as the result of some action intelligence did not play as big a role as it should have, such as his rash decision in aiming an arrow at the sun for shining too brightly or threatening Apollo’s oracle for not giving him an answer. His half god heritage brought him closer to the gods of Olympus. However his life on Earth as well as his personality flaws, like his short temper and impulsiveness, showed his human side. He was the link between the Greeks and the gods of Olympus. When compared side by side, the two heroes were very different. Moses was a normal man by birth while Hercules was half god. While his mother and the Pharaoh’s daughter saved