How can a document be deemed trustworthy that was written in 500 BC, but the earliest copy we have is 900 AD?

Question

These are the words of a Rev. in England:

"Historians work on the principle that the nearer the document you have is to the events to which it refers and the more copies of that document you have the more trustworthy it is. The works of Herodotus were written 488-428 BC. The earliest copy in existence dates from AD 900. There are 8 copies. The time lapse is 1,300 years." These late copies of the works of Herodotus' works are still trusted even with a HUGE time lapse. I am only using this as an example, for there are other documents that have big time lapses as this and yet historians still trust these copies to be reliable. How do historians conclude that documents like these are reliable even when there are major time lapses?

Answer 1

If those eight copies were from different sources and pretty much agreed on the text that would be a good indicator that they had an earlier common source. Also one could check that whichever house/city/culture was the source of the copy of the work was true to copies of different works of which we had different sources.

There's also the cultural integrity of the source. For example, we know that the Arabs studied and copied a great many Greek texts when they conquered Egypt. They then carried a lot of that scholarship to the libraries in Arabic Spain. So if a text of Ancient Greek philosophy could be traced to having been produced in medieval Spain, there's a case for its being authentic.

A scholar has to use this and other clues to judge the veracity of any ancient work.

Answer 2

The Meadowlander is right - if all eight books were copied at the same time, same place, we don't have any assurance the are accurate. If instead, they were found in different places that were geographical diverse, and still were very similar, you would have to say that the earlier versions also would have to be very similar and would have to have come off one much earlier original.

Answer 3

Let us just let the natural course of events be just as it is. Because no one is born 50 years ago as student, and then we today who follow those historians are trying to make believe that we know more than them. No one will believe that the student were born first, then after hundreds of years the teachers came out teaching us today as you are.
Or you just wanted to show something tricky smart but theres no truth about it. Its just all fantastic speculations.