The Shamir Worm

Some time ago I came across this story about a creature (or tool)
that was able to cut/engrave stones like a laser cutter....pretty crazy....
legend? legend based on truth?

you be the judge.


The magical Shamir Worm

The shamir was the seventh of the ten marvels created in the evening twilight of the first Friday and it was followed, significantly enough, by the creation of writing, the stylus, and the two tables of stone. Its size was that of a grain of barley; it was created after the six days of creation. Nothing was sufficiently hard to withstand it; when it was placed on stones they split in the manner in which the leaves of a book open; and iron was broken by its mere presence. The shamir was wrapped for preservation in spongy balls of wool and laid in a leaden box filled with barley bran.

With the help of this stone Moses engraved the names of the twelve tribes on the breastplate of the high priest, first writing on the stones with ink and then holding the shamir over them, whereupon the writing sank into the stones. With its aid, moreover, Solomon built the Temple without using any tool of iron




more:
www.varchive.org...

www.jhom.com...

www.kabbalaonline.org...(i)Shamir(1i).asp

Very interesting. I have never heard of this before. I am going to have a look at the links you provided before I comment further.

I checked out the links.Thats pertty weird

I just read all of the info on the links you provided. I have never heard of this before and I am very intrigued to say the least. I want to read some more on how the Temple of Solomon may have been built with the aid of the Shamir.

I find this description to really be the most interesting. However, I dont know if radium or uranium would "split stone" or anything else for that matter.

This sentence is quoted from the Tractate Sotah 48b of the Babylonian Talmud. �Oferet� in the text is properly translated as �lead.� It contains an important clue: folkloristic fantasy would not make a leaden box of a greater resistance than an iron or a gold one: lead is a son metal. Therefore, this must be a description based on fact. And with the knowledge of our age we may easily guess who or what was Shamir: It was a radioactive substance; radium salts, for example, acting upon certain other chemical substances, can emit a luminescence with a yellow-green hue.

www.varchive.org...


After all, it is more probable than a magic worm that disolves stone and metal.

so what do you guys think?

extraterrestrial origins?

crazy bible talk?

Far be it from me to discount off-hand the existense of a cryptid. Just look at the ratfish they recently discovered. However in this case I think that the story of whatever they were using became exaggerated in it's telling.

ratfish were discovered long before 2001; i have known about them since i was a kid. either they discovered them off the coast of Brazil in 2001, where they where previously unknown, or they discovered a new type of fish in the genus chimaera.



i remember looking at pics of these in books over 20 years ago. there used to be a link on here with pics of newly discovered fish from the deep pulled up by the US navy. it was really cool.




[edit on 6/17/2004 by panchovilla]

This past week Israel named its National or State Bird the Hoopoe. Strange for Israel since this is an unclean bird until one realizes that this is the very bird who guarded the Shamir Worm until Solomon was able to capture it away for the building of the temple. Coult this be a sign of a possible rebuilding?

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
Could this be a sign of a possible rebuilding?

It may be.

I haven't read it all yet but at an initial glance it reads like acid and acid etching...

Originally posted by Versa
I haven't read it all yet but at an initial glance it reads like acid and acid etching...

That wouldnt explain the Talmudic anecdote which said no metal casing could contain it; except 'oferet' lead. Which implies its something radioactive.

Whatever it was, its quite mysterious, cause this shamir stone is often mentioned in Jewish writings.

AnonymousATS mentioned something exceedingly interesting.