The writings of the New Testament were from the start composed in Greek. Biblical Greek reflects a mixed language where many words and expressions, although Greek in form, in reality express Hebrew meanings. The special vocabulary of the Greek Bible consists almost exclusively of religious or theological terms. The collection of writings making up the Greek Bible exhibits an extraordinary amount of linguistic diversity. Some of the texts were translated from a Semitic language while others were composed in Greek. The language of the Pentateuch is the Greek language as spoken and written throughout the Mediterranean world in the early Hellenistic period. The Greek used in the Septuagint Pentateuch has little in common with the literary language of the great classical authors such as Plato or Thucydides, and is only slightly closer to the language of Hellenistic writers like Polybius.