Keith Edward Hopkin was born in Sioux Cit y, Iowa on October 29, 1919. He received his early education at the public school in Presho, South Dakota, Webster School in St. Paul, Minnesota: Hawthorne School in Oak Park. Illinois: and at Holy Family Academy in Beaverville, Illinois; and in 1937, he worked to help support his family until he was able to begin college studies at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and at De Paul University in Chicago, Illinois. In 1943, he entered the Dominican novitiate at St. Thomas Priory in River Forest and was assigned Martin as a religious name. After first profession on June 25, 1944, he continued with philosophical and theological courses at the House of Studies in River Forest and was ordained to the priesthood on May 30, 1950, at St. Pius V Church in Chicago.

Father Hopkins was first assigned to teach religion at Fenwick High School in Oak Park. In 1954, he was sent to Rome for special studies at Santa Sabina's school for novice masters while serving as secretary to Father Timothy Sparks, then Socius to the Master of the Order for North America. In 1955, Father Hopkins returned to the States to begin teaching theology and Scripture at St. Theresa's College and St. Mary's College in Winona, Minnesota. In 1964, he published two college text books: God's Kingdom in the Old Testament and God's Kingdom in the New Testament. The following year, he began a program of studies at the cole Biblique in Jerusalem, which led him to achieving a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture.

After completing his Scripture studies in 1967, Father Hopkins was assigned to the Theology Department at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1969, he joined the Theology Faculty at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas to teach theology at the University of St. Thomas and in 1974, to Atchison, Kansas, for theology and Scripture at Benedictine College.

In 1978, Father Hopkins was granted a year of sabbatical studies to research the possibilities for developing television programs in adult religious education. While working on this project at St. Dominic-St. Thomas Priory in River Forest, he also established a series of public lectures on current theological issues that proved to be of great benefit to both religious and lay participants.

Not long after beginning this new apostolate, Father Hopkins discovered that he had contracted melanoma, a particularly virulent type of cancer. Though weakened by the spread of this disease and frequently in great pain, he continued to work steadily and without complaint on his educational projects and in directing the Catholic Biblical Association's seminar on Christology until be returned in early August 1980, to Oak Park Hospital, where he died on August 11. Following services at St. Dominic-St. Thomas Priory, he was buried in the community plot in All Saints Cemetery, Des Plaines, Illinois, on August 14.