Social codes appear in terms of honor throughout the chapter.
For an exploration of these codes, see the discussion of social and cultural texture below. All of these phenomena in the text raise the issue of social meanings which interpreters investigate by means of data outside the Gospel of Mark. Meanings of these social roles, identities, institutions, codes, and relationships are appropriately explored with the aid of texts, inscriptions, archeological data, sculpture, paintings, etc. outside the Markan text. These phenomena, then, provide a rich social intertexture for the discourse of the Gospel of Mark. Research in social phenomena outside Mark sheds important light on the nature of this social intertexture.