I'm not sure what the relevance of this post is here unless you are equating me with unbelief for some reason. I think a wide scope of people believed in Jesus from the lowest to a (very few) high priests. I think however that too many of the priesthood had false pride in their works of the Law to see humility in the simple idea Jesus himself presented.
It does indeed have to do with pride, but not simply pride in 'works of the law.' The leaders of every past religion are the first to reject the next revelation. Having contained revelation, having mastered it and placed it under our control, having squeezed it neatly into their categories, the last thing they want is to having it burst forth unpredictably once again. Thus the pattern repeats itself again and again.
As the Qur'an says: "And Joseph came to you aforetime with clear tokens, but ye ceased not to doubt of the message with which He came to you, until, when He died, ye said, 'God will be no means raise up a Messenger after Him." ( 40:36).
But then of course, Muslims then turned around and did the same exact thing. Humility ultimately is acknowledging, in the deepest way, our continuing need for God and that means being ever ready to receive His revelation. Pride sets in when the need to be right takes precedence over determining the truth. Baha'u'llah notes that leaders of religion did not simply lack knowledge and understanding, they were unwilling to seek it out if it would upset their presuppositions. Control and pride are typically to be found together. As often as not, the kind of education encouraged among the Pharisees, as later tended to predominate within Christendom, as well as among the 'ulama of Islam was aimed, not at the investigation and discovery of truth, but rather the mastery of a certain predetermined body of knowledge. Among the Shi'ites, for instance, on becoming a mujtahid one was given a diploma (ijazeh) which stipulated precisely what books one had read. Innovation, far from being something encouraged, was a byword for heresy. For this reason the religious leaders in every age insisted that the Promised One Who comes "must needs promulgate and fulfil" the laws of the previous dispensation. (KI p. 18.) But the Promised One who comes is never the One expected and Revelation overturns all of our preconceived categories.
