Biblical manuscript

A Biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. They vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures to huge polyglot codices containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as other works.
Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) manuscripts.
The Aleppo Codex ("c." 920 AD) and Leningrad Codex ("c." 1008 AD) were the oldest Hebrew language manuscripts of the Tanakh. The 1947 find at Qumran of the Dead Sea scrolls pushed the manuscript history of the Tanakh back a millennium from the two earliest complete codices. Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Out of the roughly 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, 220 are from the Tanakh. Every book of the Tanakh is represented except for the Book of Esther; however, most are fragmentary. Notably, there are two scrolls of the Book of Isaiah, one complete (1QIsa), and one around 75% complete (1QIsb). These manuscripts generally date between 150 BC to 70 AD.
Ancient Jewish scribes developed many practices to protect copies of their scriptures from error.
New Testament manuscripts.
Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work. There are over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages, such as Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. 
The dates of these manuscripts range from about 125 AD (the Ryland manuscript, P52; containing fragments of the oldest copy of John) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. Most of these manuscripts date after the 10th century. Although there are more manuscripts that preserve the New Testament than there are for any other ancient writing, the text preserved in these later, numerous manuscripts may not be the same as the text as it existed in antiquity. 
Textual scholar Bart Ehrman wrote: 
In reference to the textual evidence for the New Testament, Bruce M. Metzger wrote, 
Every year, several New Testament manuscripts handwritten in the original Greek format are discovered.