The Bible from Scratch was first published in 1987 and is still in print 20 years later, with a completely redrawn and rewritten edition in 2004. There’s also a Catholic edition, published in the US in 2006.

The book is essentially an introduction to the Bible for anyone who is coming to it for the first time, or who wants to refresh what they know about it. If you’re not sure of the difference between a concubine and a porcupine, or if you’re wondering if the epistles were the wives of the apostles, then this book is for you.

The visual style of the book is loosely based on Marx for Beginners (by Rius, the Mexican political cartoonist), and other cartoon guides which first came out in the 1970s. I love the style, even though arguably it’s a bit outdated, because it’s a very efficient way of putting across a lot of information in a concise and memorable way.

I’ve tried to strike a balance between giving the big picture, showing the overarching story of the Bible, without neglecting the individual books and characters. Almost every biblical book gets its own page, which means you can quickly get an idea of what the book of Habbakuk is about before you dive in and start reading it for yourself.

To see PDF extracts from the book, click the sample pages shown on the right.