*Article for the Oxford Union Society magazine, late 1980s* On a dark cold night in December 1984 my wife's father was smashed to pieces in a head-on car collision.   For days he hovered between life and death, with multiple breaks of leg, arm and skull.   Amazingly he recovered. But how are we to believe that a man named Jesus, put to death in a head-on collision with the authorities of his day, rose from that death, his body rebuilt?   The devestation of his mortal frame was infinitely more catastrophic than my father-in-law experienced.   His wounds were deadly, his hands and feet frightfully lacerated, his strength extinguished by loss of blood. Moreover, how could such a pathetic figure inspire his demoralised followers to turn the world upside down - as they certainly did?   From whence came their courage, displayed in abundance, to defy the mightiest powers of their day, fearing neither torture nor death? It soon became clear to me, as I nonchalantly set out to write this article, that we are dealing here with a subject more complex than at first I thought.   Hundreds of learned scholars have written tomes cataloguing the carefully-researched evidence.   Thousands of theologians have debated the issues.   Yet when the ink dries and the talking ceases we are left with just one thing: what do you believe? Let us begin by identifying what can reasonably be accepted as fact. In the early part of the first century AD there lived a man called Jesus who claimed to be the Son of God and who was crucified by the Roman authorities on the insistence of the Jewish hierarchy.   It is likely that a senior (and sympathetic) Jewish official named Joseph obtained permission to place the extinguished corpse in a private tomb on that momentous night we now mark as Good Friday. This much is generally agreed.   But what happened next?   Two aspects are central:  the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus as described by witnesses. There are many alternative theories about the empty tomb.   There is no room to go into them all here, but none of them seems convincing.   Perhaps the most important unanswered question is:  what would have happened if the tomb had not been empty, if Christ's mortal remains had lain there decomposing to dust?   In those weeks after the crucifixion when claims started circulating about Jesus' resurrection, would not the Jewish authorities - intent as they were on destroying this 'Jesus cult' - have produced the one conclusive proof that those claims were false? It is worth noting that the early disciples began the spread of their gospel message from Jerusalem, the very city where physical proof of their deceit (if it existed) was available.   It is hard to see how a group of people could have persistently and successfully preached in Jerusalem a doctrine dependent on a resurrected body if that body were in fact available for inspection.   In Nazareth, yes perhaps, but not in Jerusalem. There is not a single early document which in any way denies that the tomb was empty or suggests that Jesus' body lay elsewhere. But what if the disciples had stolen it as a precursor to the spread of the resurrection story?  It would seem to have been a brilliant move on their part, to turn the tables on their opponents. But this really is too implausible.   More is known about the character of Jesus' disciples than about most other figures of antiquity, and a more unlikely band of men capable of mounting such a stunning coup of deceit is hard to imagine.   These were no hard-core revolutionaries ready to use any means to reach their end.   They were ordinary, often timid, intensely human and honest individuals.   Their transformation into dedicated and fearless witnesses for Christ could hardly have been accomplished by a knowing deception. Besides, there would surely have been a 'leak'! An empty tomb, even the absence of a body - these are however not proofs of a risen Christ.   To make up our minds we have to listen to the evidence of witnesses - and there are many.   The gospels refer to at least 18, while St Paul claims there to have been over 500.   There is a good deal of discrepancy in the gospel records.   Be that as it may, there were many individuals who claimed to have seen the risen Christ, and their testimony explicitly refutes any idea of a mere apparition or ghost. If Christ did in fact rise from death, what form did his resurrected figure take? Many Christians today see only two possibilities:  either one affirms a bodily resurrection so physical that the risen Jesus was just as tangible as during his lifetime (a resuscitation no different from that of, say, Lazarus);  or one denies a physical resurrection and reduces his appearances merely to an internal awareness of his spiritual victory. There is however a middle ground, namely a physical resurrection in which the risen body is transformed to a differemt dimension.   The New Testament evidence is quite plain that the resurrected life of Jesus was no ordinary life;  he was no longer bound by the space-and-time laws of normal human experience.   For instance, Jesus was not recognised by several of his followers.  One may get the impression that this was simply a failure on their part, but St Mark offers a different explanation:  "He appeared in another form". What seems to be suggested is something neither purely physical nor merely spiritual.   A spirit cannot eat fish, and a body cannot pass through closed doors - both events attributed to the risen Christ. Moreover the gospel accounts hint at a radically changed status of the one who appeared.   The disciples' cry was not simply "We have seen Jesus!" but "We have seen the Lord!"   Clearly the witnesses enjoyed not only sight of Jesus but more importantly insight. Whether or not all this is of interest to the reader, I cannot tell.   What is sure is that we are facing something incontestibly mysterious.   In the resurrection we have one of the great mysteries of human experience - whether one believes in it or not.   If you affirm the truth of the event, you place your faith in something you cannot substantiate.   If you deny that it happened, there remain nevertheless many mysteries about the events triggered off by belief in it. One of Christianity's peculiar contributions may be that it forces each of us to an act of faith, whether in belief or unbelief.   To deny the existence of God when confronted with the beauty and order of nature may indeed be as great an act of faith as to believe in Him while faced with the suffering and inequity of our modern world. The resurrection of Christ cannot be proved nor disproved.   Whether or not you believe in it, it is a matter of belief. What is sure, however, is that the early disciples believed in it unreservedly.   And that belief has changed the course of history.