The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2476 page)

BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
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Tetragrammaton
(Gk., ‘four lettered’). The four letters, YHWH/JHWH, of the Hebrew name for God. Traditionally the tetragrammaton is not pronounced, and in the biblical text, YHWH is read as ‘
Adonai
’ (my Lord) or ‘Ha-
Shem
’ (the Name). The English ‘Jehovah’ is a vocalization of JHWH, inserting the vowels from Adonai.
Tetzel, John
or Johann Tetzel
(1465–1519).
Dominican
friar. Renowned as a preacher of
indulgences
, he collected money for the building of St Peter's, Rome, and the purchase of Albert of Magdeburg's archbishopric. On 31 Oct. 1517, Luther published his famous ninety-five theses attacking the indulgence traffic. In 1519 the papal
nuncio
von Miltitz endeavoured to restrain Tetzel in an attempt to reconcile those who were scandalized by his eloquent commercialism.
Tevah
(raised platform for Torah reading):
see
BIMAH
.
hag
(Prakrit,
hagga
; Sindh
,
hagu
). The anglicized Thugs or Thugees. They were devotees of the Goddess
K
l
in the form of
Bhav
n
, to whom they offered the victims of their attacks, plus a third of the proceeds. Known especially for strangling victims, any method was acceptable provided blood was not shed. The British largely eliminated the Thugs by 1861, but the cult, with its affinities with left-handed
Tantra
, persists. There is still a temple devoted to Bhav
n
at Mirz
pur, near Var
as
.

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