title: Pilgrim Holiness: Martyrdom as Descriptive Witness
author: Stanley Hauerwas
description: Joshua J. Whitfield is an Anglican priest and rector of the Church of Saint Gregory the Great in Mansfield, Texas.
zlib_text: y 277 
  PROOFTEXTS 33 (2013): 277–306. Copyright © 2013 by Prooftexts Ltd..
  The Topography of Sacrifice and Typology of Space  
  in Twelfth-Century Martyrology 
  U R I  Z .  S H A C H A R
  Following the First Crusade, a body of Hebrew literature emerged that both 
  lamented the persecution of entire communities and celebrated instances of collective 
  ritual suicide. Authors introduced episodes of Kiddush ha-Shem by structuring the 
  scenery and urban topography in a way that strongly resembled biblical descriptions 
  of the Temple in Jerusalem. Rendering the Jewish communities as sacrificial 
  offerings to the Lord, these accounts not only provided an authoritative justification 
  for unthinkable acts of suicidal-slaughter, but also offered a compelling theodicic 
  interpretation of the events. Modern scholars have argued that the articulation of 
  Kiddush ha-Shem in First Crusade literature became a defining motif in the way 
  medieval Jews imagined their reaction to violence. This essay, however