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But the Bible does not directly say that Jesus is God Himself. Yes there are certain proof-texts which can be, and have historically been, interpreted to mean such a thing, and from there it is but a short theological hop-skip&jump to full-blown trinitarianism of God-the-Father, God-the-Son and God-the-Holy-Ghost.

I have no desire to join your pissing contest with others on the thread but I take GREAT exception to your easily proven false assertion that the Triune nature of our Almighty God is incorrect or that there are no DIRECT Scripture texts that say Christ IS God in the flesh. There is no other honest way to understand the deity of Jesus with the Father AND the Holy Spirit than one of two conclusions: there are THREE Gods OR God is three persons in ONE Godhead. I think the problem many people have with the idea of the Trinity is that they try to grasp its concept with finite minds - incapable of truly comprehending the INFINITE. Christians are not polytheists - there IS only one, true God. Therefore, the Trinity has ALWAYS been a major tenet of Christianity and those who claim to follow Christ cannot deny this. There are many things that we believe by faith.

I take GREAT exception to your easily proven false assertion that the Triune nature of our Almighty God is incorrect or that there are no DIRECT Scripture texts that say Christ IS God in the flesh.
***Would you characterize such a denial of the deity of Christ to be a heresy?

boatbums: "Trinity has ALWAYS been a major tenet of Christianity and those who claim to follow Christ cannot deny this."

In historical fact, there is no explicit Trinitarian language in the New Testament, and no Christian confessed full-blown trinitarianism for not just decades, but centuries after Christ.

Yes, of course, I agree that trinitarianism is a logical conclusion to be drawn from New Testament texts, and possibly even necessary in response to various theological arguments.
But, it is not the only possible conclusion, and those who believed otherwise (including some of our Founders) should be treated with more respect than they sometimes receive.