Genesis describes the Garden of Eden as a paradise and even after Adam and Eve are expelled from it, they and their descendants for generations were said to live lives that extended to nearly a thousand years. Sumerian king lists begin with individuals who were even longer lived. In Greek mythology, Hesiod marked five ages of the world, looking back from the present iron age to an age of heroes, and before that a bronze age, a silver age, and earliest still a golden age that was free of disease, when the earth flourished, and humans were long lived. Many ancient and Medieval cultures shared this same perspective: that time and the march of history was inevitably about decline. Indeed, it was only with the advent of Modernity, with advances in technology and science that people began to see history as a march of progress. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will locate Eden and the Bible within the framework of ancient Golden Age myths, along with the development and deconstruction of the idea of progress.