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In Greco-Roman antiquity, Koine Greek was the common language of commerce and the lingua franca throughout the eastern Mediterranean.² This »Hellenistic Greek« rapidly spread from the waning years of the fourth century BCE on, quickly becoming the international means of communication. Special features of the common Greek language of the Hellenistic period are its tendency to simplify, harmonize, and clarify both morphology and syntax, as well as a noticeable increase in neologisms and loan words.

Koine Greek is not only the language of the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, but also of much Jewish literature of the period. The numerous Hellenistic-Jewish writings in Greek that have been preserved display a wide range of levels of linguistic sophistication. Local linguistic peculiarities, on the other hand, are relatively few and far between.