Personally, I believe that regardless of what version of Scripture one has, God has preserved His message to mankind.
Amen. If all I had available was a "Catholic" Bible, I would use it without thinking twice. The whole message is still there.
The Alexandrians had some issues and the commission wasn't made by the Jews (who were very careful in translating and preserving their own Scripture), but by a secular authority. I think some of these things need to at least be considered when one tries to discern Holy Spirit leadership on the issue.
This is one part that confuses me. Is it right that the actual translators were Alexandrian Jews? Is the idea then that they simply followed the orders of the secular Commissioners in which books to put in? Is it proper to say that translations made by Diaspora Jews were not as authoritative?
For example, God allowed the originals to go to dust. Why would he do that? Well for two reasons. So we wouldn't worship paper/papyrus/lambskin, but pay attention to what was written on the media. But secondly, I believe He did this so that we would wrestle with the issue a little. Why? Because it causes us to ask questions about Himself.
Yes, I fully agree. Not only is idol worship wrong, but it is too easy. God gave us an inquisitive nature and so He knew exactly what buttons to push to get us asking questions. It's no surprise at all that the Bible is the most analyzed work in the history of literature.
CCEL has a good article on the Septuagint.
I don't think they were just following orders. But you do not see the same attitude towards what is Scripture and how to preserve Scripture with the Alexandrians as you do other Jewish groups. Think of how meticulous they were in preservation of the text.
At Seminary, one of my profs, who is a brilliant Old Testament Scholar and is not only fluent in Hebrew but in ancient Phoenician, I believe Mesopotamian and other near-East languages, showed us a slide of an original Hebrew text. In the text, the Scribe made an error in omitting a phrase. On the page of the text, the scribe wrote the text out to the side and had the equivalent of an arrow being drawn to where the text was to be inserted. They were meticulous.
The Alexandrians were closer to an NIV Dynamic translation. They were not as concerned with 100% literal accuracy as they were with conveying thoughts. It wasn't a big deal to insert books they thought were valuable - even if they were not a part of the Hebrew Canon.
Here are a few excerpts that I think help answer some of your questions. The authors there are better authorities on it than myself.
"In examining the version itself, it bears manifest proof that it was not executed by Jews of Palestine, but by those of Egypt: -- there are words and expressions which plainly denote its Alexandrian origin: this alone would be a sufficient demonstration that the narrative of Aristeas is a mere fiction. It may also be doubted whether in the year 285 B.C. there were Jews in Palestine who had sufficient intercourse with the Greeks to have executed a translation into that language; for it must be borne in mind how recently they had become the subjects of Greek monarchs, and how differently they were situated from the Alexandrians as to the influx of Greek settlers.
Some in rejecting the fabulous embellishments have also discarded all connected with them: they have then sought to devise new hypotheses as to the origin of the version. Some have thus supposed that the translation was made by Alexandrian Jews for their own use, in order to meet a neccesity which they felt to have a version of the Scriptures in the tongue which had become vernacular to them.
There would be, however, many difficulties in the way of this hypothesis. We would hardly suppose that in a space of thirty-five years the Alexandrian Jews had found such a translation needful or desirable: we must also bear in mind that we find at this period no trace of any versions having been made by Jews into the languages of other countries in which they had continued for periods much longer than that of their settlement at Alexandria.
The most reasonable conclusion is, that the version was executed for the Egyptian king; and that the Hellenistic Jews afterwards used it as they became less and less familiar with the language of the original... "
"At Alexandria the Hellenistic Jews used the version, and gradually attached to it the greatest possible authority: from Alexandria it spread amongst the Jews of the dispersion, so that at the time of our Lord's birth it was the common form in which the Old Testament Scriptures had become diffused.
In examining the Pentateuch of the Septuagint in connection with the Hebrew text, and with the copies preserved by the Samaritans in their crooked letters, it is remarkable that in very many passages the reading of the Septuagint accord with the Samaritan copies where they differ from the Jewish. We cannot here notice the various theories which have been advanced to account for this accordance of the Septuagint with the Samaritan copies of the Hebrew; indeed it is not very satisfactory to enter into the details of the subject, because no theory hitherto brought forward explains all the facts, or meets all the difficulties. To one point, however, we will advert, because it has not been sufficiently taken into account, -- in the places in which the Samaritan and Jewish copies of the Hebrew text differ, in important and material points, the Septuagint accords much more with the Jewish than with the Samaritan copies, and in a good many points it introduces variations unknown to either.
The Septuagint version having been current for about three centuries before the time when the books of the New Testament were written, it is not surprising that the Apostles should have used it more often than not in making citations from the Old Testament. They used it as an honestly-made version in pretty general use at the time when they wrote. They did not on every occasion give an authoritative translation of each passage de novo, but they used what was already familiar to the ears of converted Hellenists, when it was sufficiently accurate to suit the matter in hand. In fact, they used it as did their contemporary Jewish writers, Philo and Josephus, but not, however, with the blind implicitness of the former.
In consequence of the fact that the New Testament writers used on many occasions the Septuagint version, some have deduced a new argument for its authority, -- a theory which we might have thought to be sufficiently disproved by the defects of the version , which evince that it is merely a human work. But the fact that the New Testament writers used this version on many occasions supplies a new proof in opposition to the idea of its authority, for in not a few places they do not follow it, but they supply a version of their own which rightly represents the Hebrew text, although contradicting the Septuagint. ..
Thus the Septuagint demands our attention, were it only from the fact that the whole circle of religious ideas and thoughts amongst Christians in the East has always been moulded according to this version. Without an acquaintance with the Septuagint, numerous allusions in the writings of the Fathers become wholly unintelligible, and even important doctrinal discussions and difficulties (such even as some connected with the Arian controversy) become wholly unintelligible.
As the Septuagint was held in such honour in the East, it is no cause for surprise that this version was the basis of the other translations which were made in early times into vernacular tongues. There was, however, also another reason; -- the general ignorance of the original Hebrew amongst the early Christians prevented their forming their translations from the fountain itself. The especial exception to this remark is the Syriac version of the Old Testament formed at once from the Hebrew."
http://www.ccel.org/bible/brenton/intro.html