Andrew Fuller's Shorthand Finally Deciphered

Northern Ireland student cracks code of Baptist leader’s shorthand notes

"Baptist leader Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) left hundreds of pages of shorthand notes which have baffled academics for centuries. The University of St Andrews said third-year divinity undergraduate Jonny Woods has now become the first person in the world to....to crack the code enabling people to finally read documents Fuller left in shorthand."

The breakthrough came after Dr Steve Holmes, head of the School of Divinity at the university, found a shorthand document with the heading in longhand in the archive of Bristol Baptist College, which holds hundreds of pages of Fuller’s sermons....Dr Holmes recruited Mr Woods through the university’s undergraduate research assistant scheme to help....After a few weeks, the student was able to translate the shorthand....Dr Holmes said: “When Jonny told me he could read these documents, it was an astonishing moment....To be reading words of his that no-one had read since he preached them in 1782 – it’s one of those moments you live for as an academic.'"

"translations of two sermons are now with the Baptist Quarterly under consideration for publication while Dr Holmes is continuing to edit Fuller’s wider collection of sermons for a major new critical edition of his works."

"According to the Andrew Fuller Centre for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, his first major work, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, which appeared in 1785 with a second edition in 1801, proved to be 'an epoch-making book that decisively refuted Hyper-Calvinism'"

"Although known to have immersed himself in the works of many Baptist and Puritan authors, including John Bunyan, John Gill and Jonathan Edwards, Baptist scholars say it was 'to the Scriptures that he looked for his theological convictions'."

Jonny Woods is the first person in the world to read shorthand notes left by Baptist leader Andrew Fuller