10 Things I Want My Readers To Know About Me By Trevor Dennis

The best thing that's ever happened to me was meeting my wife, Caroline. We've been married over 47 years, and have 4 children and 8 grandchildren. I am very, very fortunate.

My Mum took me to church when I was small, and I grew up wanting to be a vicar (sad child!). I never became one. A curate for just 2 years, then a school chaplain (at Eton!), followed by teaching at a theological college in Salisbury, and finally a post at Chester Cathedral. No regrets!

When I was a chaplain at Eton, my nick-name was, inevitably, the Rev Trev.

I loved teaching OT studies at Salisbury, and invariably preached on the OT reading. I used to refer to the NT as 'The Appendix'.

I got down to serious study of the Gospels when I moved to Chester Cathedral and found to my horror that they didn't have an OT reading at the main Sunday service. So I bought lots of books on Jesus, and some multi-volume commentaries and started reading - and I was hooked. The Gospel writers were brilliant storytellers, and this book has emerged from my continuing fascination with them.

One of the best things about writing about the Bible is suddenly seeing new things in a passage that is so familiar, asking questions you haven't asked before, or making fresh connections. I was surprised myself by some of the conclusions I drew in this book - but very excited. There's lots of wonderful scholarship out there, which never normally darkens the doors of our churches. For this book I was particularly stimulated by the writings of some Jewish scholars.

I go to my parish church one Sunday and Quaker Meeting the next. The Quaker silence means a great deal to me, and our not being constrained by doctrine. Being a Quaker is very challenging.

My first girlfriend was studying music and introduced me when I was in my teens to the music of Benjamin Britten. I still have a passion for it. I've been to several performances of his 'War Reqiuem', and at the end there's always a long, long silence before the applause explodes. The work is a towering masterpiece and it brings me to tears. I am devoted also to the work of Rembrandt, who shows me what it is to be human and takes me deep into the heart of God. Britten and Rembrandt are among my greatest saints.

I watch birds. So many memories: sitting on a Wiltshire hillside with one nightingale in full song in one ear and a second nightingale in full song in the other - the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard; being in a small boat off the Pembrokeshire coast one summer's evening, surrounded by tens of thousands of Manx shearwaters, filling the sea and the sky - they take the art of flying to a new level, do shearwaters.

The theological college at Salisbury taught me to be completely honest in my teaching and preaching of the Bible, and in my writing about it: to celebrate its many glories with gusto, but never to defend the indefensible. It helps me, too, that Caroline is not a Christian. She is immensely supportive of my work, but she keeps me grounded and has stopped me being consumed by the Church.