manuscript
“A manuscript is a document written by the human hand rather printed mechanically.” (source: Quarles and Kellum Bibliography)
Think “manu” = by hand (like the word “manual” in “manual labor”), and “script” = something written.
extant
According to Merriam-Webster, the word “extant” means “still existing: not destroyed or lost.”
According to the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, the total number of extant New Testament manuscripts is in excess of 5,800. As to be expected, the overwhelming majority are partial. The oldest date back to the 2nd Century AD. The most recent are from the 16th century, which was a century after the invention of the printing press.
According to ChatGPT, “By ancient-document standards, the New Testament enjoys an unusually rich, early, and numerous manuscript tradition, giving textual critics far more material than for nearly any other text from the Greco-Roman world.* If you line the New Testament manuscripts up next to almost anything else from the ancient Mediterranean world, the contrast is striking. Scholars often point out three things: how many copies there are, how early they appear, and the time gap between the author’s life and our earliest surviving copy. Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) is the one ‘closer’ competitor in sheer count, but his manuscripts are much later on average than the earliest NT papyri.” In other words, in terms of extant manuscripts and the three ways of evaluating them, Homer’s dwarf all the competition except the New Testament…which dwarfs Homer’s.
*These include authors that many scholars depend on for ancient historical facts: like Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
A Bible Reader's Website 