Why Italicized? John 8:6, 1 John 2:23, and 1 John 3:16 Answered
In the King James Bible, there are italics. They are used to show when the translators supplied words either because the English language requires them to make sense or because of something implied in the originals that aren't "explicitly" there. Originally, in the 1611 King James Bible, there were no italics. Instead, since the text was mostly in Gothic type, the supplied words were in Roman type. When, however, they switched from Gothic to Roman, they began using italics where the Roman type had been originally. I have a leaf from a 1630 King James Bible, and it uses the Roman type with italics, so some point from 1611 to 1630 is when this switch was first being made (but not completely as I found a 1639 KJV with Gothic type). Galatians 4:14 in the 1630 KJV; "even" is in italics There are three times that the KJV uses italics for something other than supplied words. It was used to denote variances in the received texts in three spots: John 8:6, 1 John 2:23, ...