There is no need to apologize for not responding earlier. These forums are here to be used as time permits. The real world always takes precedence over forums.
You are right when you say that polytheism is the view that there is more than one god. Then you proceed to qualify those gods in a manner which the definition does not allow. Multiple gods who are exterior to the universe would still be polytheism. Two or more gods, no matter how one defines them, is polytheism.
That is the problem those Christians in the second and third Centuries who desired to elevate Jesus to Godhood faced. They had too many Gods to be monotheistic.
Actually any religion -could- be the real one. And that includes dead and forgotten religions. There just isn't anything about God that we know from the universe or morality which even requires a religion, let alone that it has to have lots of subscribers.
Textual Criticism can tell one much about documents like the Bible. It can provide educated guesses about which variations may be the oldest. It can provide data which suggests something has been added or subtracted from the texts we have. It can tell us whether the same person authored different texts or not.
What it can not do is recreate the original texts of the various books of the Bible. There is simply too much hand copying between the original documents and the existing copies of the Bible which are centuries newer than the original documents.
Short of a miraculous archaeology discovery of the original documents we will never know for sure what the original writings actually said.
And to the issue of Lazarus. You have pretty much quoted the applicable passages. I suggest they don't mean quite what you want them to mean. Certainly Jesus was there. Certainly Lazarus was resurrected because of Jesus. The real question is whether the POWER to resurrect belonged to Jesus or to God.
I think if you look again at the passages, you will see that Jesus gives the glory for the resurrection to God, not the Son of God.
I will reprint it here for convenience:
40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.
42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
The resurrection of Lazarus was a demonstration of the authority of God, not Jesus, so that those standing there would believe the Father sent Him.
But the more critical thing is that, if one believes the Bible, Jesus did NOT resurrect Himself. The Father resurrected Him. There are numerous passages which say this so rather than list them all, I will provide a link which does list them:
24 Bible verses about God Raising Christ
So we are back to the question, if the resurrection of Jesus confirms that Jesus is God Incarnate, what about Lazarus? He was raised from the dead through the same power Jesus was...God the Father.
Well, regarding the Gospels, let me copy here something I've found that can illustrate how the writings can actually be restored:
"Let me illustrate how such a test can be made. It will help you see how scholars confidently reconstruct an original from conflicting manuscripts that are centuries removed from the autograph.
Pretend your Aunt Sally learns in a dream the recipe for an elixir that preserves her youth. When she awakes, she scribbles the complex directions on a sheet of paper, then runs to the kitchen to mix up her first batch of “Sally’s Secret Sauce.” In a few days, she is transformed into a picture of radiant youth.
Aunt Sally is so excited she sends detailed, handwritten instructions to her three bridge partners (Aunt Sally is still in the technological dark ages—no photocopier or email). They, in turn, make copies for ten of their own friends.
All goes well until one day Aunt Sally’s schnauzer eats the original script. In a panic she contacts her friends who have mysteriously suffered similar mishaps. The alarm goes out to the others who received copies from her card-playing trio in an attempt to recover the original wording.
Sally rounds up all the surviving handwritten copies, 26 in all. When she spreads them out on the kitchen table, she immediately notices differences. Twenty-three of the copies are virtually the same save for misspelled words and abbreviations littering the text. Of the remaining three, however, one lists ingredients in a different order, another has two phrases inverted (“mix then chop” instead of “chop then mix”), and one includes an ingredient not mentioned in any other list.
Do you think Aunt Sally can accurately reconstruct her original recipe from this evidence? Of course she can. The misspellings and abbreviations are inconsequential, as is the order of ingredients in the list (those variations all mean the same thing). The single inverted phrase stands out and can easily be repaired because one can’t mix something that hasn’t been chopped. Sally would then strike the extra ingredient reasoning it’s more plausible one person would mistakenly add an item than 25 people would accidentally omit it.
Even if the variations were more numerous and diverse, the original could still be reconstructed with a high level of confidence with enough copies and a little common sense.
This, in simplified form (very simplified, but you get the point), is how scholars do “textual criticism,” an academic enterprise used to reconstitute all documents of antiquity, not just religious texts. It is not a haphazard effort based on guesses and religious faith. It is a careful analytical process allowing an alert critic to determine the extent of possible corruption of any work and, given certain conditions, reconstruct the original with a high degree of certainty."
Regarding Jesus being resurrected by the Father, that is true. However, we must include that Jesus actually
claimed to be God. For an instance, in
Mark 14:61-62:
61 But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
62 And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Son of Man is the connection in the
Book of Daniel 7:13-14:
13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold,
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.
14 And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion
is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom
that which shall not be destroyed.
Also, we can find connections with Old and the New Testament regarding the attributes of God. For instance:
Isaiah 44:6 "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts;
I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me
there is no God.
Connection in
Revelation 1:17-18 17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not;
I am the first and the last:
18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
Psalm 9:7-8 7 But the LORD shall endure for ever:
he hath prepared his throne for judgment. 8 And
he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.
Matthew 25:31-32 31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him,
then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and
he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth
his sheep from the goats:
Psalm 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done
this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest,
and be clear when thou judgest.
Mark 2:5-12 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy,
Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.
6 But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
7 Why doth this
man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?
8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy,
Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?
10 But that ye may know that
the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)
11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.
12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.
Psalm 31:5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD
God of truth.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him,
I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
1 Samuel 2:6 The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.
John 5:25-29 25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
26 “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.
28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Isaiah 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
John 17:5 And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
Also, there are verses like
John 10:30 I and my Father are one.
Matthew 16:15-17 15 He saith unto them,
But whom say ye that I am? 16 And Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
I think that, from this, we can conclude that, even though Jesus was resurrected by the power of the Father, Jesus actually is God.