I add my welcome to those before me,
Landroval. Enjoy the Downs!
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Originally Posted by Landroval
Basically, the Silmarils as hallowed items burn those of evil spirit who touch them. Morgoth was able to wear them in a crown with no ill effect to the crown itself, but when he touched them his hands were burned black. Others have also been be burned by them such as the wolf Carcharoth and the Sons of Feanor. Others were not, such as King Thingol, who might be seen as just as arrogant and possessive as Thorin.
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I think there are some problems with this assumption. The Silmarili burn flesh, that's true, but that does not mean that they give off heat such as would melt everything around them. To explain this, let me use an analogy - a wound burns, even though the substance that it's in (air, water, alcohol, medicine of some sort, etc) is not hot and not terribly corrosive. Moreover, Thingol wore the Silmaril on his chest when he spoke haughtily with the Dwarves. That was no good deed, but the Silmaril didn't burn through the Nauglamir.*
That also brings me to my next point. I wouldn't say that touching the Silmarils is denied only to
evil spirits. I would change that to people a) with evil intentions, and/or b) who have no right to the Silmarili. Once again using the example of Thingol, he had nothing nice in mind when he was with the Dwarves, but he had a claim to the Silmaril, through Beren.
In support of this theory, is support it be called, I'll say this. When The Hobbit was written, JRRT was thinking of his First Age mythology. I believe TH was originally supposed to happen in Beleriand, and if you look at the geography it makes sense. JRRT couldn't publish The Silmarillion, so he published a book "about" The Silmarillion. TheArkenstone was probably modeled on a Silmaril - so it is the fourth of the kind, if you really want to think this way. (Maybe not a Silmaril, but something very similar, since we know that no one could replicate them) But still - I don't believe it's a Silmaril by their true definition; it's not one of Feanor's three.