Ford Lewis Battles (30 Jan 1915 – 22 Nov 1979) was an American historian and theologian and one of the foremost scholars of John Calvin.
Battles traveled as a Rhodes scholar to England, where he studied the early church fathers and medieval literature under C. S. Lewis at Exeter College, Oxford (1938-1940).
After the war, he returned to West Virginia University to teach English (1945-1948) and then enrolled at Hartford Theological Seminary, where he earned a doctorate in Old Testament (1950).
Battles wrote of his time at Oxford University, "So far as I know, my rebirth into a faith all too imperfectly received in my childhood began to come when I was sent to the early Christian fathers by my academic supervisor, C. S.
[4] To meet the needs of his students at Hartford and later at Pittsburgh, Battles began to translate Greek and Latin Christian texts and used the literature in his courses.
Thereafter, he became a specialist in the life and writings of the Genevan reformer and devoted his career to translating and interpreting Calvin’s works.
[12] While on sabbatical leave at the University of Gottingen during 1962 and 1963, Battles envisioned writing a commentary on the Institutes with Professor Otto Weber.