Abstract

The question about the relation between religion and mediality, especially between religion and writing as a medium, appears evident and alluring. It can all too easily become ensnared in the rash solutions of media determinism, resulting in a history of media understood as parallel to the history of religion. The following paper distances itself from both the predominant phonocentric as well as contrary grammatocentric approaches and chooses another path. It addresses an aspect of phonetic writing neglected until now, namely the silence specific to writing, together with the possibility of falling silent, the descending hush in written communication. It investigates the prospect of a proto-messianic dimension of phonetic writing, namely »Unschweigen«, un-silence. As I will argue at the end of this paper, these concepts are helpful for a better understanding of the Gospel of Mark, especially the peculiarity of its abrupt end, and to shed light on the Gospel as a genre.