A leading Soviet Bible scholar said Wednesday a Soviet magazine plans to serialize the New Testament in an effort to boost its sales. ``At first, I was shaken by such an indecency,'' said Sergei S. Averintzev, ``but then I thought, it's good.'' Averintzev, 61, said he was commissioned to write footnotes to the New Testament, which is to be published in the magazine In the World of Books. He said a Soviet publishing house also was preparing a book edition of the New Testament with his notes. The scholar, who is in Israel with a delegation of Soviet filmmakers, is a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and has written books and articles on ancient Greek and Byzantine culture and the Bible. In a lecture at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Averintzev said said the magazine wanted to print the New Testament ``to enlarge its circulation.''
