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The use of the Jewish Bible in James takes two contrasting forms: exact or near exact verbatim citation in chap. 2, and highly paraphrastic use elsewhere. This chapter argues that the verbatim citations in chap. 2 are a function of James’s polemical engagement with the use of texts from Genesis and Leviticus in Romans. When James has hortatory or protreptic aims in view (rather than polemical and argumentative goals), he uses the more common technique of aemulatio (rhetorical paraphrase), where the predecessor text is adapted and reconfigured to the linguistic and social register of the intended hearers.