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That is why, though the historical arguments for Jesus's bodily resurrection are truly strong, we must never suppose that they will do more than bring people to the questions faced by Thomas, Paul, and Peter, the questions of faith, hope, and love.  We cannot use a supposedly objective historical epistemology as the ultimate ground for the truth of Easter.  To do so would be like lighting a candle to see whether the sun had risen.  What the candles of historical scholarship will do is to show that the room has been disturbed, that it doesn't look like it did last night, and that would-be normal explanations for this won't do.  Maybe, we think after the historical arguments have done their work, maybe morning has come and the world has woken up.  But to investiage whether this is so, we must take the risk and open the curtains to the rising sun.  When we do so, we won't rely on the candles anymore, not because we don't believe in evidence and argument but because they will have been overtaken by the larger reality from which they borrow, to which they point, and in which they will find a new and larger home.  All knowing is a gift from God, historical and scientific knowing no less than that of faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.

~N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, p. 74