Just as good an excuse as any to demonstrate how badly written and ambiguous the bibble is, possibly on purpose, I thought I'd have a go at creative new meanings:
//17:And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils;//
Firstly, I'm willing to bet we'd all agree on the meaning of "cast out", in that the devils are to be thrown out of people, as opposed to places or things. The way in which that concensus arises shows how ingrained in our society the notion of "demonic possession" is. Even atheists do not need it explained to them: they have received the programming; they merely reject it. ;)
Anyway, my spin would be: "they shall cure mental illness, in (his) name".
// they shall speak with new tongues; //
I wanted to be obtuse and argue that this meant the recently ejected devils would be forced to speak with a new tongue: a fresh victim.
Otherwise, I'd take this to mean "they (marvellously vague specification, so every reader will, egocentrically, think it applies to the) will learn to speak new languages".
That sounds unremarkable to us, in this day and age but, to a biblical-era audience of illiterate subsistence farmers, maybe this came across as a magical ability? Why acquire new languages, though? Does the narrative move on to spreading the word, worldwide?
//18: They shall take up serpents; //
Errrrrm, nope. Complete creative spin failure, with that one.
Why "take up" and not "lift up" or "raise up". I have to add the obvious: ...above the head, otherwise, especially that last one, the verb is prone to being misinterpreted as meaning rearing, as in breeding/farming. This is exactly why the original word (Greek? Aramaic?), on the original manuscript needs to be seen and its useage, in that era, guessed at or found from contemporary material.
//and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; //
I'm wondering if this is a smoking gun indication that they went about duping onlookers with fake "deadly" potions, to win converts? But what would be recognised as deadly, on sight, in the biblical era?
//they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. //
Too self-explanatory to be spun but I am suddenly curious about the etymology of the word "recover". If it was ever used literally, what was covered for a second time? How did this morph into the figurative sense of regaining health?
Again, the exact word or phrase used in the original manuscript would be interesting to know, for comparison.