The trick was actually that Johnny joined the competition in the first place. I reckon folks'll get mighty suspicious and jealous when you're lugging around a golden fiddle.
We hear about Johnny's triumph, but I suspect that the story plays out in the devil's favor afterwards. He just wanted to make sure that this fantastic fiddler was at the center of the mayhem - taking a musician meant to spread merriment and turning him into a tool for chaos, maybe even rending him from this mortal coil in the process.
He shows up in Oh Brother Where Art Thou doesn't he?
Actually, the devil demonstrated considerable skill with his fiddle. Johnny himself admitted he was pretty good. This poster needs to read the Bible.
It's wild some of the stuff I find out is in the bible, and not just unrelated fiction. I was 14 when I finally found out David and Goliath was in the bible, not just some whacky kids story lol
The fiddle itself is a handicap too, gold is an awful material for an instrument.
Book of John, for those curious /s
The story of the devil and the fiddle is not in the bible.
It's from the song "the devil went down to Georgia" from Charles Daniels.
The song is quite popular so references to it in popular culture are common. But that's all it is. A story
Whatchu mean your Bible ain't got the Gospel accordin' to Charlie? You one of them freaky-deaky Catlicks? Come on down to the First United International Church of the Resurrection of the Lost Cause and we'uns gonna show you how to praise the Lord CORRECTLY!
I think the "read the bible" was kind of a shot at evangelicals that say that shit all the time.
Well one good story deserves another.
Johnny committed the sin of Pride when he said that he's the best, and the sin of Greed when he coveted that gold fiddle.
The Devil got what he wanted as soon as Jonny accepted the bet.
The 7 deadly sins are never mentioned in the bible. They were discussed by a few different people but made popular by Pope Gregory 1st in 590 AD. So therefore are an invention of the church and need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Pride especially is the most stupid one. Should Jhonny not be proud of his skills? Should one not be proud of anything to be able to go into heaven? If you earn a gold medal at a sport would you go to hell for saying that you were the best athlete?
And can we be sure that Jhonny accepted the bet because of greed for the fiddle? Could it not be necessity? Could it not be convenience or simply confidence in his skills?
Ultimately it's just a story created for a song so the specifics don't matter.
The point I'm making is that the 7 deadly sins are stupid and people should stop referencing them
I think they have value as a consideration because I see them as the main motivations for doing evil shit. Not all instances of those motivations result in evil but most evil has at least one of them involved.
And pride absolutely belongs on the list.
Like there's the pride one can feel in accomplishing something that boosts confidence and makes the person want to accomplish more. Or there's the pride where one person thinks they are better than others because they have accomplished some things (sometimes reducing everyone else into a binary "did they also do this one thing I did?").
And then there's the pride at being part of a group that plays a role in shit going on today and played a role in WWII. Actually, it was extreme in that case but many wars have leveraged pride to convince the population to fight it.
Each of them can be either ok or problematic.
Lust can play an important role in relationships. It can also reduce relationships to sexual episodes, sometimes without consent of all involved parties.
Greed can motivate someone to better themselves to increase the amount of resources they have access to. It can also drive people to exploit others for the resources their skills or time can access.
Wrath can motivate positive change when people get tired of systemic problems and it can drive someone to help another against a predator. It can also motivate assaults, murders, and genocides.
Sloth can conserve resources when it's not necessary to use them. It can also result in resources crumbling away due to lack of maintenance or care.
Envy can motivate positive changes similar to greed, if the person can handle it in a healthy way. It can also lead to similar bad outcomes as the others, depending on what the person is envious about.
Gluttony is one I'm having trouble thinking of a positive for. I guess it can also motivate positive change to set up a position where one can be gluttonous. But consumption of an excessive amount of anything is at best neutral if you can do it without affecting others, and will often place some kind of burden on others around you.
So from my perspective, the seven deadly sins can be backed up with logic and reason, and they make more sense to me than the 10 Commandments (which is half sensible rules and half about religious power, and the religious power ones all get listed first).
And Hell was first mentioned during the Medieval period. Sometime around the 1200s, I believe? The first versions of the Bible said that Lucifer was cast into Tartarus, where the Greek gods imprisoned the Titans.
The Bible itself is a collection of interpretations and stories across a span of hundreds of years. Jesus says that the Old Testament is null and void in the Bible, and then John later on says that the Old Testament is still in effect and that's not what Jesus meant and that he knows Jesus better than his disciples did, despite living over a hundred years later.
The King James version of the Bible was edited to be a piece of pro-monarchy propaganda that was published at a time when many monarchies were literally losing their heads. The history of Christianity can essentially be summed up as hundreds of years of groups arguing over whose head-canon is right.
Regardless of what you and I think of the 7 deadly sins, they are an established part of the religion and make this contrarian interpretation of the song work. Personally, though, I much prefer Jesus's mindset of throwing tables, beating up the rich, and telling people who blame women wearing revealing outfits for their own moral failings to tear out their own eyes so they stop.
I wonder if it's pride when you are legitimately the best and are simply aware of it, and whether the fiddle truly meant anything.
I argue the only pride Johnny showed was the need to prove his prowess to a challenger.
There's a wide swath of grey here.
I mostly take "offense" (not really) at Johnny saying that he's "the best there's ever been." It's a pretty conceited statement to declare yourself the best at anything in all of history, even if it's true.
It's one thing to be proud of your accomplishments and skill. It's an entirely different thing to declare yourself mankind's crowning achievement in the world of fiddle playing.
Also, the Devil accepted defeat despite the fact that there were no judges to determine the winner.
Johnny was just so good that even the devil couldn't challenge it.
Johnny is the best that ever was.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall"
Lucifer was cast out due to pride.
Johnny said, "Devil, just come on back if you ever wanna try again I done told you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best there's ever been"
The devil didn't lose, not in the long run.
He was just trying to get rid of that awful solid gold fiddle. What’s the use of gold in hell?
I dunno why the robot devil specified "solid" gold-- the original song just said gold. You can make violins out of metal, so theoretically a gold one could work.
But this way he gets your soul plus kage as a bitch
At this point, he can have JB
Devil probably just wants to keep it interesting, it's not exactly like the stakes were very high for the Devil
be Satan
immortal being
so bored 👿
challenge mortals to contests for their souls
give them stupid garbage as prizes
can't even actually collect sold souls!
just hope they turn into arrogant, debaucherous assholes after "beating the devil"
plan successful 😈
inspired a few kickass rock songs too
I would like to subscribe to your blog
No way, devil won that shit hands down
I can't find the full bit, but John Oliver is on team devil. ~hes not playing power chords, he brought a live band, his chorus is even better!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=673VdjXHWGs
Good guy satan: Gives people knowledge and then acknowledges when they're better than him at something.
Hmm, so I'm basically Satan as a parent when I give my kids compliments? I guess it's time to get a pitchfork and make it official.
The devil lost because he was using a fiddle made of gold.
That's... kinda the whole point. If the devil challenged me to a writing-your-name-in-the-snow contest, I might try it. If he challenged me to Fortnite, I'd just laugh at him.
Not even a band of demons can quite fully hide the inferior shredding on that fiddle faddle.
I mean with all the souls he's been through I figure he's just having fun with it at this point. Why not a fiddle contest? Maybe the next soul I'll do a doodle contest!
Good enough for government work.
