Good Book On Tape

And now, coming to video screens near you... the Gospel according to St. Mark, the first-ever video translation of a passage from the New Testament.

As yet untitled, this 8 1/2-minute production from the American Bible Society brings to living color Mark 5:1-20, which recounts Jesus' exorcism of a man possessed by evil spirits. Produced and directed by filmmaker Merle Worth (The Concert for Bangladesh), the contemporized St. Mark features handsome baby boomers dressed in Gap-style clothing. ''Our goal is to make the Bible more accessible to 21st-century audiences, especially teenagers,'' says Fern Lee Hagedorn, the New York City-based society's multimedia translation project manager. ''We know film and TV is more stimulating than print.''

That may seem like bad news for the Good Book, but if the video (set for a June release) is a hit, the nonprofit society plans a series of celestial shorts — God willing, of course.