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I find that a tricky challenge when choosing how to render text into another language. Do you translate word by word even though that sounds clunky in the new language, or do you translate to maintain the overall meaning but flow smoothly paragraph by paragraph? Maintaining the precise meanings and connotations can be hard with either option. I mostly like Young's Literal Translation for study purposes, but I would not recommend it to a new Christian as a Bible for reading. LXX does not tell one what the original said, but a word by word translation often misses the mark by at least as large a margin for anything but scholarly study.

This would be true even in today's time WRT translation from one language to another. Some words simply may not exist in another language and we see many times the word itself is just not even translated but used as is. That is why any good translation MUST have multiple scholars proficient in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew to put together a reliable translation of the Bible and it entails not just word for word but context. They also need a good understanding of the culture and times in which they were written.

I remember in Bible College this salient point being brought home when we studied the Gospel of John. In John 10:28, Jesus said, "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.". We found that the word "never" was actually a triple negative and where the Greek used four words, the English version just translated as "never". In Greek the words were: οὐ μή εἰς αἰών , and really were saying: never, certainly not, not at all, by no means, at any time, at any place, for any purpose, whether male, female or even neuter, forever, perpetually, eternally. WOW! Jesus really meant something, didn't he? That is why I am grateful for multiple translations as well as concordances and lexicons, so we can actually have a real glimpse at the true intent of the words and so we can know, even today, exactly what God wanted us to know.

In John 10:28, Jesus said, "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.". We found that the word "never" was actually a triple negative and where the Greek used four words, the English version just translated as "never". In Greek the words were: οὐ μή εἰς αἰών , and really were saying: never, certainly not, not at all, by no means, at any time, at any place, for any purpose, whether male, female or even neuter, forever, perpetually, eternally. WOW! Jesus really meant something, didn't he? That is why I am grateful for multiple translations as well as concordances and lexicons, so we can actually have a real glimpse at the true intent of the words and so we can know, even today, exactly what God wanted us to know.

When reading that passage casually, the one word translation "never" is a simpler, smoother translation, one that lets a modern reader understand the words quickly. However, when you're wondering "did Jesus really mean 'never'", as you said, referring to the original makes the original intent perfectly clear. I've done the same especially with debated passages. Did Jesus really mean . . . ? Almost always, the Greek makes it clear that the KJV translators got it right, and the same is true for more recent non-political translations. It makes me sad though when I read a translation that has tried to be more inclusive and changed the underlying meaning. I don't understand why a sincere person would, rather than accepting the Word of God or even rejecting God's Word, have the nerve to correct God's "mistakes" and update scripture to match what they wish God had said.