In an increasingly secularised society, the average person is unlikely to have a working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - is built on Christian concepts and biblical references.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories.

Each chapter gives the full text of a story from the Bible and explains its original significance, then shows how this story has become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Ian McEwan, and The Beatles to Monty Python.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL opens up not just the Bible but also much of popular culture, and is for the everyday reader as well as the churchgoer.