Benjamin Franklin Meyer, author and professor, was born in Chicago, Illinois on 5 November 1927. On 27 March 1969, he married Denise Oppliger. He was educated at the University of Santa Clara, California, the Biblical Institute, Rome and the Gregorian University, also in Rome. Meyer was assistant professor of religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley from 1965 to 1968. From 1969 until his retirement in 1992, he taught in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University.

He earned the respect of scholars around the world for his extensive work on the historical Jesus, and was the author of numerous books including The Man for Others (1970), The Aims of Jesus (1979) and Christus Faber (1992). Meyer was also the author of the television documentary "Christianity" (1973). Among the many honours and awards he received was a Fulbright fellowship in Germany from 1964 to1965 and Canada Council fellowships in Greece and Switzerland in 1976 to1977 and 1983 to1984. He resided in Burlington, Ontario and Les Verrières, Switzerland. Meyer died at Les Verrières on 28 December 1995.