March/April 2004
COMMON GROUND
by Joseph TkachEveryone has heard the familiar nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie:”
Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.
You may have heard that this rhyme was first sung in
the streets of London in 1349, and is actually a sinister parody on the
Black Death.
The “ring around the rosie,” we’re told, refers to
the disease’s round, red rash. The “pocket full of posies” refers
to the belief that sweet-smelling flowers could ward off the disease. “Ashes” is
a corruption of “a-choo” — the sneezing sounds of the
infected person. “We all fall down” refers to the deaths
of the victims.
There’s only one problem with this explanation: It isn’t
true.
Someone — long after the fact — concocted this inventive “explanation.” It’s
solely a product of imagination.
In actuality, the rhyme dates only from the 19th century. It was merely
a popular game for children, having no particular meaning despite latter
day efforts to create one for it.
There’s a lesson here for Christians. We must not blindly accept
someone’s ideas or speculations about the meaning of biblical passages.
The meaning of a passage is not established by the fervor or prestige
of the speaker, or by the plausibility of the explanation.
When we seek to understand the Word of God, we must study its historical
and cultural context, and subject it to careful objective examination — correctly
handling “the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Just because
an interpretation has “been around” and has been often repeated,
doesn’t mean it’s true!