Mark IV, the computation laboratory's forthcoming mechanical brain, may begin its scientific career by "reading" the Bible with a minister from Tucson.

The Reverend John W. Ellison announced today that he has received a grant of $3,250 from the American Philosophical Society to do a textual study of the Gospel of St. Luke on the University's latest computer. Construction on Mark IV will probably be completed in the spring.

The machine is expected to whiz through 100 ancient manuscripts of the Bible, two at a time, in less than two weeks. Its job will include spotting differences between the manuscripts, showing where extra words have been added, others deleted, different spellings used, and word orders inverted.