Michael Baigent was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1948. He studied religion and psychology at the University of Canterbury, where he graduated in 1972. Before becoming an author, he was a commercial photographer. His first book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which was released in the United States as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, was written with Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln and was published in 1982. The book hypothesized that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and that their descendants were protected by a secretive group called the Priory of Sion. He and co-author Richard Leigh unsuccessfully sued Random House UK for copyright infringement, over similarities between their work and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Baigent's other works included The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, The Jesus Papers, and Racing toward Armageddon. He died of a brain hemorrhage on June 17, 2013 at the age of 65.
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