Answer for yourself: How do you give authority to a new book that is in competition with a prior "best seller?"
Well that is simply, you build up big legends about this "new book" and spread them to the populace. In time your "new book," if merchandised correctly, will outsell your competition. This was done with the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures.
Forged tales were fabricated to account for the translation into Greek of the Jewish Scriptures, in what is known as the Septuagint Version. After the conquests by Alexander the Great and his establishment of the city of Alexandria in Egypt, immense numbers of Jews were settled in the new city, which quickly became the commercial and intellectual center of the ancient world, with Greek the universal language. The holy Hebrew language had become a dead language to the Jews of the "Dispersion"; their synagogue services could not be conducted in the mother tongue. The Alexandrian Jews, the vast majority who had been influenced by Hellenism and the Greek religious culture, were accordingly under necessity to render the "Law" into Greek for their public use; and this was gradually done by such of them as thought themselves able to do such work. These Greek-Jewish Essenes of Alexandria would take it upon themselves to translation the Jewish Scriptures into Greek as well as add many of their sect's doctrines and dogmas among its pages. But this common-place mode of rendering the sacred Hebrew into a Gentile speech did not satisfy the pious wonder-craving Jewish mind. Accordingly, somewhere about 200 B.C., an anonymous Jew invented a more satisfactory tale, which has had incalculable influence on the Christian faith and dogmas. This pious Israelite had the customary recourse to religions forgery; he forged a letter in the name of one Aristeas, an official of Ptolemy II, Philadelphus, the Greek king of Egypt, 285-247 B.C., purporting to be addressed to his brother, Philocrates, and giving a marvelous history of the Translation.
Here, in substance, is what we read of the first origin of the Version, limited therein to the "law" of Moses, as first related by Josephus. What we need to do is stop and think right now: at this time at the translation of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek the Jews recognized as their "Bible' ONLY the first five books of Moses. This is important because the legend will make it sound as if the Rabbis translated the whole of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Their failure to do so explains the hundreds of corruptions and adulterations made to the text as it was translated into Greek by these Greek-Jews of Alexandria later. Ptolemy had recently established a library at Alexandria, which he purposed should contain a copy of every obtainable literary work extant. This Library became the most extensive and celebrated of the ancient world, containing some 700,000 manuscript books at the time it was savagely destroyed, in 391 A.D., by the benighted Christian zeal and fury of Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria and his crazy monks of Nitria, as related in Kingsley's Hypatia or any history of the times. CE. xiv, 625.) At the suggestion of Demetrius, his Librarian, fables the pseudo-Aristeas through Josephus, that he should enrich the Library with a copy of the sacred law (notice again it was the first 5 books of the Law only) of the Jews Ptolemy wrote to Eleazar the chief priest at Jerusalem, sending the letter and magnificent presents "to God" by the hand of a delegation including Aristeas, requesting a copy of the Law and a number of learned Jews competent to translate it into Greek. The embassy was successful; a richly ornamented copy of the holy law, written in letters of gold, was sent to the King, together with seventy-two Doctors of Israel, deputed to deliver the Book and to carry out the wishes of the King. They were received with great honor, says pseudo-Aristeas, and duly feted for several days; they were then conducted across the long causeway to the Island of Pharos to the place which was prepared for them, "which was a house that was built near the shore, and was a quiet place, and fit for their discoursing together about their work, ... Accordingly they made an accurate interpretation, with great zeal and great pains," working until the ninth hour each day, and visiting Ptolemy every morning. "Now when the Law was transcribed [first 5 books only],and the labor of interpretation was over, which came to its conclusion in seventy-two days," the work was read over to the assembled Jews, who rejoiced that "the interpretation was happily finished"; they were enjoined to report any errors or emissions which they might discover, to the "Seventy," who would make the necessary corrections in their work. (Josephus, Antiq. Jews, Bk. XII, chap. 2; CE. xiii, 722.) Thus the translation was only of "The Law," the Five Books of Moses; and it was open team-work, all the Seventy-two working together, comparing and discussing as they proceeded, and expressly enjoining the Jews to note and report for correction all errors of omission or commission which they might discover.
Thus the pseudo-Aristeas, as cited by Josephus; thought, as a matter of fact, this Septuagint Version, so-called because of the legendary Seventy-(two), was in the grossest manner inaccurate, and imported innumerable errors into the Christian religion which was based upon and propagated for several centuries only through the Septuagint texts. Indeed, "the text of the Septuagint was regarded as so unreliable, because of its freedom in rendering, and of the alterations which had been introduced into it, etc., that, during the second century of our era it was discarded by the Church." (Catholic Encyclopedia. iv, 625.) We shall notice the fearful error of Isaiah's "virgin-birth" text; for other well-known instances, it makes out Creation 1195 years earlier than the Hebrew and Vulgate, 4004 B.C., and the venerable Methuselah is made to survive the Flood by fourteen years.Despite, however, its patently legendary character, the pseudo-Aristeas' account, the forged letter and the story, were eagerly accepted as genuine and authentic by Fathers, These Greek early Church Fathers, believing the legend, fell prey to the errors in the Greek text. Coupled with that and their inability to read Hebrew whereby such "purposeful mistranslations" could be easily spotted, they like most of us, fell prey to relying on a text full of error of which they never knew since adopting and believing in simple faith that this Greek translation was accurate and was the "Bible from God!" Popes and ecclesiastic writers until the sixteenth century, when their spurious character was revealed by the nascent modern criticism. "The authenticity of the letter, called in question first by Louis Vives (1492-1540), professor at Louvain, is now universally denied." (CE. xiii, 722.)
The Fathers, however, could not rest content with this unvarnished original fabrication in the name of Aristeas, of an ordinary human and errant translation of the "Law"; they avidly set about embellishing it in the accepted clerical style, adding fanciful and lying details to emphasize the miraculous and inspired origin of the Version. These actions guaranteed the success of the LXX over the Palestinian Masoretic text. What I find amazing is that Clement of Rome, the Bishop of Rome, the first major Christian writer after Paul, used only the Jewish Palestinian text for "all" his quotations of Scripture in his writings. It is not as if he did not know Greek, for being the Bishop of Rome dictated such, but yet, he quoted only from the Jewish Scriptures and not the Greek translation.
Answer for yourself: Did he know something we don't, are as yet just coming to the knowledge of?
As this notable instance of belief in legends serves admirably to illustrate the childish and uncritical credulity of the Fathers, their reckless disregard of truth, their chronic zest for any untruth or fable quotable to pander to the glory of God and enhance the pious superstition of the Faithful, let us here watch the growth of this simple human yarn of the Jewish Aristeas-forger into the wonderful and ever more embellished miracle as it passes from Father to Father, -- exactly as the Gospel-fables grew from "Mark" to "John." According to Fathers Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, et als., the 72 were inspired by God each severally for the entire work; in translating they did not consult with one another; they had been shut up incomunicados in separate cells on Pharos, either singly or in pairs, and their several translations, when finished and compared, were found to agree entirely both as to sense and the expressions employed, with the original Hebrew text and with each other (St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Irenaeus, Justin Martyr). Finally, the 72 translated not only the Law, but the entire Old Testament, -- several of whose Books were not yet at the time written. Again this betrays the lack of truth and honesty as found in the early Church Fathers and yet we are to believe them and untold is the influence they had upon what we call Christianity today!
Father Justin Martyr adds near-eye-witness verification to the false and already embroidered history, saying that the "Seventy" were, by order of the King, (Ptolemy)" shut up in as many separate cells, and were obliged by him, each to translate the whole Bible apart, and without any communication with each other, yet all their several translations were found to agree verbatim from the beginning to the end, and were by that means demonstrated to be of divine inspiration"; and he adds, for confirmation of faith! -- like Paul, protesting he is not lying in anticipation of the accusation: "These things, ye men of Greece, are no fable, nor do we narrate fictions; but we ourselves having been in Alexandria, saw the remains of the little [cells] at the Pharos still preserved." (Ad Graec. ch. xiii; ANF. i, 278-9.)
But in repeating the tale to the Roman Emperor, Father Justin makes the unhappy blunder of saying, that Ptolemy "sent to Herod, who was at that time king of the Jews, requesting that the books of the prophets [pseudo-Aristeas said the "Law"] be sent to him; and the king did indeed send them" (I Apol. ch. xxxi; ANF. i, 173).
Answer for yourself: Did you catch his lie?
Herod lived some 300 years after Ptolemy died. This forged fable is time and again repeated as sober truth.
Bishop Saint Irenaeus emphasizes the miraculous nature of the translation of all the Books, saying that when the 72 identical translations were compared, "God was indeed glorified, and the Scriptures were acknowledged an truly divine; ... even the Gentiles present perceived that the Scriptures had been interpreted by the inspiration of God. And there was nothing astonishing in God having done this. ... He inspired Esdras the priest (after the return from captivity) to recast all the words of the former prophets, and to reestablish with the people of God the Mosaic legislation." (Adv. Haer. III, xxi, 2; ANF. i, 451-2.) By now you should be seeing little miraculous was connected with them.
In the course of a century or two before the Christian Era, the other Hebrew sacred books were likewise translated into Greek for the use of the Greek-speaking Jews of "the Dispersion," together with numbers of the forged Jewish apocrypha, and all these were added to the rolls of "Scriptures." This final and adulterated form of the Septuagint "was the vehicle which conveyed these additional Scriptures [i.e. the apocryphal Tobias, etc.] into the Catholic Church." (CE. iii, 271.)
The role of the Holy Ghost in certifying the ill-translated and tempered Septuagint for the foundations of Christian Faith, was very disastrous, as CE. Points out:
So YHVH only knows what he actually said and did in the 4004 years up to the time of the birth of Jesus.
Matters grew worse as time progressed: the ex-Pagan Greek Fathers who founded Christianity, propagated the new Faith for several centuries only from the tortuous texts of this falsified Septuagint, which was the only Old Testament "Scriptures" known to and used by them as the source of the "prophecies fulfilled by Jesus Christ" and the holy mysteries of the Jewish-Christian Faith. "Copies of the Septuagint," says CE., "were multiplied, and, as might be expected, many changes, deliberate as well as involuntary, crept in." (CE. xiii, 723.) Indeed, the itch for Scripture-scribbling was so rife among such ex-Pagan Christians as could write and get hold of a copy, that St. Augustine complains: "It is possible to enumerate those who have translated the Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek, but not those who have translated them into Latin. In sooth, in the curly days of the faith whoso possessed a Greek manuscript and thought he had some knowledge of both tongues was daring enough to undertake a translation." (De Doct. Christ. II, xi; CE. ix, 20.) So the Faith was founded on befuddlement of the Blessed Word of God as any nondescript scribbler palmed it off to be.
The Holy Church never possessed or used a single book of "Scripture" or other document of importance, to the glory of God and the glorification of the Church, which was not a rank original forgery and bristled besides with "many deliberate changes" or forged interpolations.