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Oh no! I have had that question before LOL. Most of the snake handling churches are in Eastern KY, but I'm in the Western part of the state. I believe Jesus was using an idiom for spiritual opposition (we all know that the enemy is spoken of as taking the shape of/possessing a serpent in order to tempt Eve in Genesis and that the Apostle John spoke of the enemy as a serpent in Revelation 20:2). According to Lamsa, the snakes in Mark 16 are "enemies", so he would probably agree with my view that the serpents and scorpions represent enemies (even though I don't think Lamsa would agree completely because of my belief in the existence of Satan and demons).
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No, it wasn't, but Paul wasn't tempting God like you would be if you purposely drank poison or danced around with a rattlesnake!