I think there are incontrovertible direct and implied proscriptions against suicide in the Bible, derived from God's ownership over His creation, and included in the prohibition of murder. ("You shall not murder," has no direct object. It doesn't say, "You shall not murder someone else." It simply says, "You shall not murder.) A person's life is the property of God, and to destroy one's life is to wrongly assert dominion over what is God's.
Genesis 9:5,6
5"Surely I will require (D)your lifeblood; (E)from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man's brother I will require the life of man.
6"(F)Whoever sheds man's blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For (G)in the image of God
He made man.
1 Corinthians 6:19-21
19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
1 Corinthians 3:16-18
16Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Consider some of the examples of suicide:
2 Samuel 17: 21-23
21It came about after they had departed that they came up out of the well and went and told King David; and they said to David, "(T)Arise and cross over the water quickly for thus Ahithophel has counseled against you."
22Then David and all the people who were with him arose and crossed the Jordan; and by dawn not even one remained who had not crossed the Jordan.
23Now when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and arose and went to his home, to (U)his city, and (V)set his house in order, and (W)strangled himself; thus he died and was buried in the grave of his father.
1 Kings 16: 18,19
18When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire, and (V)died,
19because of his sins which he sinned, doing evil in the sight of the LORD, (W)walking in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin which he did, making Israel sin.
Of course, Judas:
5And he threw the pieces of silver into (A)the temple sanctuary and departed; and (B)he went away and hanged himself.
... 18(Now this man (A)acquired a field with (B)the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.An attempted suicide - Notice Paul's counsel:
27When (BB)the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about (BC)to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
28But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!"
29And he called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before (BD)Paul and Silas,
30and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, (BE)what must I do to be saved?"
The following excerpt is taken from the United States Supreme Court ruling in the 1997 Washington v. Glucksberg (opinion written by Chief Justice Rehnquist).
We begin, as we do in all due process cases, by examining our Nation's history, legal traditions, and practices. See, e.g., Casey, 505 U. S., at 849-850; Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 269-279; Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U.S. 494, 503 (1977) (plurality opinion) (noting importance of "careful `respect for the teachings of history'"). In almost every State--indeed, in almost every western democracy--it is a crime to assist a suicide. [n.8] The States' assisted suicide bans are not innovations. Rather, they are longstanding expressions of the States' commitment to the protection and preservation of all human life. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 280 ("[T]he States--indeed, all civilized nations--demonstrate their commitment to life by treating homicide as a serious crime. Moreover, the majority of States in this country have laws imposing criminal penalties on one who assists another to commit suicide"); see Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361, 373 (1989) ("[T]he primary and most reliable indication of [a national] consensus is . . . the pattern of enacted laws"). Indeed, opposition to and condemnation of suicide--and, therefore, of assisting suicide--are consistent and enduring themes of our philosophical, legal, and cultural heritages. See generally, Marzen, O'Dowd, Crone & Balch, Suicide: A Constitutional Right?, 24 Duquesne L. Rev. 1, 17-56 (1985) (hereinafter Marzen); New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, When Death is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context 77-82 (May 1994) (hereinafter New York Task Force).
More specifically, for over 700 years, the Anglo American common law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide. [n.9] Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). In the 13th century, Henry de Bracton, one of the first legal treatise writers, observed that "[j]ust as a man may commit felony by slaying another so may he do so by slaying himself." 2 Bracton on Laws and Customs of England 423 (f. 150) (G. Woodbine ed., S. Thorne transl., 1968). The real and personal property of one who killed himself to avoid conviction and punishment for a crime were forfeit to the king; however, thought Bracton, "if a man slays himself in weariness of life or because he is unwilling to endure further bodily pain . . . [only] his movable goods [were] confiscated." Id., at 423-424 (f. 150). Thus, "[t]he principle that suicide of a sane person, for whatever reason, was a punishable felony was . . . introduced into English common law." [n.10] Centuries later, Sir William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England not only provided a definitive summary of the common law but was also a primary legal authority for 18th and 19th century American lawyers, referred to suicide as "self murder" and "the pretended heroism, but real cowardice, of the Stoic philosophers, who destroyed themselves to avoid those ills which they had not the fortitude to endure . . . ." 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *189. Blackstone emphasized that "the law has . . . ranked [suicide] among the highest crimes," ibid, although, anticipating later developments, he conceded that the harsh and shameful punishments imposed for suicide "borde[r] a little upon severity." Id., at *190.
For the most part, the early American colonies adopted the common law approach. For example, the legislators of the Providence Plantations, which would later become Rhode Island, declared, in 1647, that "[s]elf murder is by all agreed to be the most unnatural, and it is by this present Assembly declared, to be that, wherein he that doth it, kills himself out of a premeditated hatred against his own life or other humor: . . .his goods and chattels are the king's custom, but not his debts nor lands; but in case he be an infant, a lunatic, mad or distracted man, he forfeits nothing." The Earliest Acts and Laws of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations 1647-1719, p. 19 (J. Cushing ed. 1977). Virginia also required ignominious burial for suicides, and their estates were forfeit to the crown. A. Scott, Criminal Law in Colonial Virginia 108, and n. 93, 198, and n. 15 (1930).
Over time, however, the American colonies abolished these harsh common law penalties. William Penn abandoned the criminal forfeiture sanction in Pennsylvania in 1701, and the other colonies (and later, the other States) eventually followed this example. Cruzan, 497 U. S., at 294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Zephaniah Swift, who would later become Chief Justice of Connecticut, wrote in 1796 that
"[t]here can be no act more contemptible, than to attempt to punish an offender for a crime, by exercising a mean act of revenge upon lifeless clay, that is insensible of the punishment. There can be no greater cruelty, than the inflicting [of] a punishment, as the forfeiture of goods, which must fall solely on the innocent offspring of the offender. . . . [Suicide] is so abhorrent to the feelings of mankind, and that strong love of life which is implanted in the human heart, that it cannot be so frequently committed, as to become dangerous to society. There can of course be no necessity of any punishment." 2 Z. Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 304 (1796).
This statement makes it clear, however, that the movement away from the common law's harsh sanctions did not represent an acceptance of suicide; rather, as Chief Justice Swift observed, this change reflected the growing consensus that it was unfair to punish the suicide's family for his wrongdoing. Cruzan, supra, at
294 (Scalia, J., concurring). Nonetheless, although States moved away from Blackstone's treatment of suicide, courts continued to condemn it as a grave public wrong. See, e.g., Bigelow v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co., 93 U.S. 284, 286 (1876) (suicide is "an act of criminal self destruction"); Von Holden v. Chapman, 87 App. Div. 2d 66, 70-71, 450 N. Y. S. 2d 623, 626-627 (1982); Blackwood v. Jones, 111 Fla. 528, 532, 149 So. 600, 601 (1933) ("No sophistry is tolerated . . . which seek[s] to justify self destruction as commendable or even a matter of personal right").
That suicide remained a grievous, though nonfelonious, wrong is confirmed by the fact that colonial and early state legislatures and courts did not retreat from prohibiting assisting suicide. Swift, in his early 19th century treatise on the laws of Connecticut, stated that "[i]f one counsels another to commit suicide, and the other by reason of the advice kills himself, the advisor is guilty of murder as principal." 2 Z. Swift, A Digest of the Laws of the State of Connecticut 270 (1823). This was the wel l established common law view, see In re Joseph G., 3 4 Cal. 3d 429, 434-435, 667 P. 2d 1176, 1179 (1983); Commonwealth v. Mink, 123 Mass. 422, 428 (1877) ("`Now if the murder of one's self is felony, the accessory is equally guilty as if he had aided and abetted in the murder'") (quoting Chief Justice Parker's charge to the jury in Commonwealth v. Bowen, 13 Mass. 356 (1816)), as was the similar principle that the consent of a homicide victim is "wholly immaterial to the guilt of the person who cause[d] [his death]," 3 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 16 (1883); see 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Law §§451-452 (9th ed. 1885); Martin v. Commonwealth, 184 Va. 1009, 1018-1019, 37 S. E. 2d 43, 47 (1946) (" `The right to life and to personal security is not only sacred in the estimation of the common law, but it is inalienable' "). And the prohibitions against assisting suicide never contained exceptions for those who were near death. Rather, "[t]he life of those to whom life ha[d] become a burden--of those who [were] hopelessly diseased or fatally wounded--nay, even the lives of criminals condemned to death, [were] under the protection of law, equally as the lives of those who [were] in the full tide of life's enjoyment, and anxious to continue to live." Blackburn v. State, 23 Ohio St. 146, 163 (1872); see Bowen, supra, at 360 (prisoner who persuaded another to commit suicide could be tried for murder, even though victim was scheduled shortly to be executed).
The earliest American statute explicitly to outlaw assisting suicide was enacted in New York in 1828, Act of Dec. 10, 1828, ch. 20, §4, 1828 N. Y. Laws 19 (codified at 2 N. Y. Rev. Stat. pt. 4, ch. 1, tit. 2, art. 1, §7, p. 661 (1829)), and many of the new States and Territories followed New York's example. Marzen 73-74. Between 1857 and 1865, a New York commission led by Dudley Field drafted a criminal code that prohibited "aiding" a suicide and, specifically, "furnish[ing] another person with any deadly weapon or poisonous drug, knowing that such person intends to use such weapon or drug in taking his own life." Id., at 76-77. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, it was a crime in most States to assist a suicide. See Cruzan, supra, at 294-295 (Scalia, J., concurring). The Field Penal Code was adopted in the Dakota Territory in 1877, in New York in 1881, and its language served as a model for several other western States' statutes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Marzen 76-77, 205-206, 212-213. California, for example, codified its assisted suicide prohibition in 1874, using language similar to the Field Code's. [n.11] In this century, the Model Penal Code also prohibited "aiding" suicide, prompting many States to enact or revise their assisted suicide bans. [n.12] The Code's drafters observed that "the interests in the sanctity of life that are represented by the criminal homicide laws are threatened by one who expresses a willingness to participate in taking the life of another, even though the act may be accomplished with the consent, or at the request, of the suicide victim." American Law Institute, Model Penal Code §210.5, Comment 5, p. 100 (Official Draft and Revised Comments 1980).
Though deeply rooted, the States' assisted suicide bans have in recent years been reexamined and, generally, reaffirmed. Because of advances in medicine and technology, Americans today are increasingly likely to die in institutions, from chronic illnesses. President's Comm'n for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life Sustaining Treatment 16-18 (1983). Public concern and democratic action are therefore sharply focused on how best to protect dignity and independence at the end of life, with the result that there have been many significant changes in state laws and in the attitudes these laws reflect. Many States, for example, now permit "living wills," surrogate health care decisionmaking, and the withdrawal or refusal of life sustaining medical treatment. See Vacco v. Quill, post, at 9-11; 79 F. 3d, at 818-820; People v. Kevorkian, 447 Mich. 436, 478-480, and nn. 53-56, 527 N. W. 2d 714, 731-732, and nn. 53-56 (1994). At the same time, however, voters and legislators continue for the most part to reaffirm their States' prohibitions on assisting suicide.
Cordially,
23. The verse, "Do not stand idly by your fellow's blood," Leviticus 19:16, is cited both as a source for the obligation to save oneself as well as to rescue others. See, e.g., J. David Bleich, Treatment of the Terminally Ill, 30:3 Tradition 51, n. 12 at 79. The verses, "Be careful, very careful indeed for your lives," see Rabbi Moshe Sofer, Hatam Sofer, Yoreh De'ah, 326, and "you shall live by [the commandments] . . .," reinforce an affirmative obligation to safeguard one's life. The verses, "if your fellow is missing something, you shall restore it to him," Deuteronomy 22:2, is applied to a duty to save someone's health in T.B. Sanhedrin 73. At least one early authority, Nahmanides, cites "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," Leviticus 19:18, as a source for a physician's duty to provide medical treatment See Nachmanides, Torat HaAdam in Bernard Chavel (ed.), Kitvei Ramban II:43. See also Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, Tzitz Eliezer, Responsa of Ramat Rachel V:21 (citing Nahmanides' view).
Cordially,
Thanks for taking the time to assemble the various arguments for a position against suicide (purportedly) based on the Bible. Before turning to the three Biblical passages you cite, let me take a moment on your two introductory arguments: (i) 'murder' includes suicide and (ii) suicide wrongfully asserts dominion over God's property, i.e. our lives.
Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The missing element in most suicide is malice. Most suicides are depressed people who cannot face the future. I suppose I must concede the possibility of someone who is not in the former category and is in all respects well-balanced but simply harbors malice against himself. That might theoretically occur, but the difficulty is separating remorse (such as Judas below) from actual malice. I can't think of an example of such malice in a suicide.
On the "God's property" argument, that simply doesn't wash. Yes, we are the creations of God, but that doesn't equate to exclusive ownership. First, God told Adam (and us) that the earth (his creation) was for our use and exploitation. Second, such a doctrine would undermine all kinds of personal responsibility. ["God made me this way and I can't fool with His property."] It is not surprising that these doctrines have their genesis in fatalism: 'whatever will be, will be' and it is our task to endure.
______________
Now to the three Biblical passages you cite: one from Moses and two from Paul.
Gen 9: 4-6 "But you must not eat meat with its life (that is, its blood) in it. For your lifeblood I will surely exact punishment, from every living creature I will exact punishment. From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual since the man was his relative. Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made mankind."
Here the clear context shows that God is restoring social order after the carnage of the flood. He is saying He will punish every man (and even animals) who kills another man. He is emphasizing the relative importance of man "for in God’s image God has made mankind. While the overarching teaching is the importance of man, it does not proscribe suicide. It's emphasis is social, not individual.
1 Cor 6:19-20 [Let's place these two verses in their context by starting at verse 15.] "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that anyone who is united with a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body”—but the immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body."
Once read in context, it is clear that Paul is in the midst of an extended teaching on avoiding sexual immorality. It certainly has nothing to do with suicide. [It is hugely dangerous to pry Scripture from its context.]
1 Cor 3:16,17 [Again for context let's start at v. 9] "You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master-builder I laid a foundation, but someone else builds on it. And each one must be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each builder’s work will be plainly seen, for the Day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test what kind of work each has done. If what someone has built survives, he will receive a reward. If someone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If someone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, which is what you are."
Here, again, Paul is in the midst of an extended teaching on the building of the church at Corinth. The context makes clear that he is discussing building a defective church structure.
Finally, that he is discussing the church not individuals is shown in the grammar. The Greek pronoun for 'you' in the verse you quote is plural (referring to the church).
The passage you quote has nothing whatever to do with suicide.
___________
The Biblical "examples" you cite also do not make your point.
2 Sam 17:23 "After setting his household in order, he hanged himself." Ahithophel had devised a plan (17:1-3) to trap the army and remove David. Being forewarned, David escaped and Ahithophel returned to his home and committed suicide in remorse over the failure of his plan. This is not a proscription of suicide. It's just a statement of fact. He did it.
1 Kings 16:18 " He set the palace on fire and died in the flames." Zimri appointed himself king. 7 days later, his city was besieged and seeing that the battle was lost, set the palace on fire and died in the flames. We don't know if it was intentional suicide or an accidental death in the course of the arson.
Matt 27:5 "Then he went out and hanged himself." Judas is recorded here as committing suicide in remorse over his betrayal of Christ. [Although Acts 1:18 records his accidental death due to a trip and fall on his land.] But in any event, nothing in Matthew's account condemns him for having done so. It is merely recorded that he did so. It may well have been the right thing for him to do.
Acts 16:28 "When the jailer woke up and saw the doors of the prison standing open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, because he assumed the prisoners had escaped. But Paul called out loudly, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here!” This citation is amusing. Clearly, Paul is advising the jailer against a mistaken suicide, by telling him "we are all here!" This is certainly not a teaching of Paul's that the suicide would have been improper had they, in fact, escaped. It just doesn't say.
The fact is the Bible does NOT proscribe suicide. [RCC accretionist dogmas do, but I really don't know (or care) enough about them to debate it.]
Thanks for demonstrating the paucity of the Biblical arguments though.