Well, no, this isn't right. Ophis is clearly speaking about "serpents" in the usual sense of the word. That is the literal, denotative meaning of this word. It can have connotative and figurative senses in which it is referring to a person or being that is being denigrated as a "snake" (e.g. satan is called this in Rev. 12:9,14,15; 20:2) and Jesus used it figuratively to denote enemies of the Gospel (Matt. 10:16; 23:33). However, the intended meaning is always that of a serpent, a snake, and was so since Homer began using the term in Greek in the 8th century BC.
Mark 16:9-20 is part of the Bible, and is indisputably so to anyone who approaches the text reasonably (which, incidentally, does not always describe textual critics of the Metzgerian mold).
Mark 16:18 is NOT, however, teaching that Christians would handle snakes. Let's look at the context. The handling of snakes (and the drinking of poison) is listed right along with the casting out of devils and the speaking in tongues. As I Corinthians makes clear, tongues and other sign gifts were given to the early churches specifically for the purpose of serving as a sign to unbelieving Jews and as a means of revealing truth to the very early churches who did not have access at that time to all of the New Testament. They were not for use as a "magic trick" in the churches. Further, once the NT was fully revealed and began to be propagated, tongues and other sign gifts would cease. If the Jews wanted to believe, then they could access the completed revelation of Scripture; and if Christians wanted to know how to live and believe, they had access to the completed revelation of Scripture.
Handling serpents and drinking poison were not active things Christians did, but were things done to them (i.e. somebody trying to poison you, also, see Paul's experience with the snake that bit him in Malta, and the effect it had on the Maltans who saw it, thus serving as a "sign," so to speak, Acts 28:3-6). As such, when the reason for the other sign gifts passed away, so did these.
I am correct. Ophis is from the Hebrew word OPHTHALMOE which means “through sharpness of vision”.
The definition of Ophis as used at the time in Greek is:
a snake (figuratively, as a type of sly and cunning), an artful, malicious person, espc. Satan-serpent.
That’s straight from my Greek Dictionary out of my dad’s library. Sorry. you need to dig back further.