Theists: What makes your claims right and the claims of other theists wrong?

[Vicki Q]

... Using secondary sources is a perfectly good way of doing history. ...

It may be acceptable for historical research, but it is an imperfect way to discover the claims of primary sources. Since your argument concerned the claims of primary sources, your relying on the accounts of secondary sources is illegitimate and bad scholarship.

Since you were making a claim about what the primary sources say, referring to secondary sources is irrelevant.

Clearly my powers of explanation are less than I realised; again independent research is strongly advised.

Primary sources are not the people themselves, they are information that came directly from the people. Like an autobiography. Secondary sources are information that is about the person, rather than from them. Like a biography.

Both are used to research historical questions perfectly well. We know what the disciples said happened, because we have a mass of material, all of which points in the same direction.

The historical evidence is somewhat overwhelming about what they believed they saw.