Daniele Soares is a Brazilian scholar whose academic journey has taken her from the world of economics to the heart of theology and cultural studies. She began her studies in economics with a clear conviction: she wasn’t destined for a life in finance. While her peers chased stocks and markets, she was drawn to people and their stories, their needs, and the ways public policy could impact their lives.
This curiosity led her to explore macroeconomics, public policy, and eventually, the cultural dimensions of society. Her passion for understanding the human experience opened the door to anthropology and sociology, where she found new ways to connect ideas with real lives. Alongside her academic work, her involvement in church life and biblical studies planted a growing desire to bridge culture and theology. This desire took her across borders, to a seminary in the United States, and later all the way to Jerusalem, where she immersed herself in biblical languages and the ancient world. Today, she brings all of these threads together, thinking deeply about how culture, faith, and history shape who we are.
Currently, Daniele Soares is a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, investigating the labor and taxation in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah during the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple and the city wall.
What initially drew you to the WORK-IT project, and how does it connect to your broader research interests? What do you expect to learn from your work on the project, both academically and personally?
What drew me in was ultimately how amazed I was by the project and by Jason’s idea. I thought: Wow, is it possible to combine the ancient world with modern theories? That question immediately intrigued me. Initially, I wasn’t sure about the approach and how to establish that connection.
What I’m learning here, and what I really hope to continue learning, is how to use methodology: Apply theoretical concepts and turn them into tools for interpreting and understanding ancient societies. That’s been the core of what I’m trying to develop as a researcher, using theory not just as abstract thinking, but also as a lens to see ancient worlds more clearly.
How do you balance your roles as an economist, theologian, and biblical scholar when approaching your research? Do these perspectives ever conflict or enrich each other?
For me, it’s not a conflict, but I understand why others might see it that way. Often, when I’m asked what I do, and I mention that I research the Bible, I immediately notice people’s reactions. Sometimes, they don’t know how to respond; and other times, the conversation stops there. It’s as if the word “Bible” shuts everything down and leads me to reflect on how some people could have a very limited or biased view of the Bible, probably because of the religious distorted use of its text. This misunderstanding is sad because the Bible is a brilliant text. It covers so many topics from ancient times. It contains narratives, laws, poetry, politics, economy, and social questions. And you don’t need to have faith or a specific belief to read it or be interested in it. There’s so much to learn, even from a purely academic or literary point of view.
So, no. It’s not a conflict for me, but I understand the tension. On one side, the academic standards require the proper methodologies to proceed with the research and self-consciousness from the researcher. On the other side, among religious communities, some people believe that because the Bible is sacred, it shouldn’t be studied through historical or critical methods. They think it limits or even threatens the sanctity of the text. I sometimes find myself in the middle of these two extreme perspectives. Academically, this is a challenge because I need to be very conscious of my position, from where I’m speaking, and how I frame my research. I need to take these different sensitivities into account when I write.
As for balancing these roles: economist, theologian, and biblical scholar, I wouldn't say I consciously switch between them. It’s more that I’m driven by curiosity. I always ask questions about the text.
For example, in the story of Joseph in Genesis, Pharaoh had a dream about cows and grain – healthy and unhealthy, abundance and scarcity, and nobody among his counsellors could explain it. Then, Joseph interprets the dream, saying there would have been seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. He advised Pharaoh to store resources during the good years to prepare for the bad. When I read that, I notice the theological details because the biblical text has this theological purpose of how God is behind the scenes, revealing to Joseph what the great Pharaoh wasn’t able to understand. It’s a conversation about different gods and their power. However, I want to go beyond and think: This is economics! This story is also about how a government prepares for crisis and how a society responds to agricultural instability or climate-related challenges. This kind of decision was a current challenge in ancient times and is still relevant for economists today. The Bible’s relevance to economics and social theory can be a source of inspiration for interdisciplinary research, as it provides a unique literary perspective on how societies have dealt with similar challenges. There are several other examples in the Bible, we just need to pay attention to them. If you bring in social theory or economic concepts, you can uncover more in the text. These perspectives don’t conflict, but rather, they enrich one another. They open new ways of seeing both the ancient world and our own.
What challenges do you face applying modern social and economic theories to ancient religious texts, and how can these texts, in turn, challenge our assumptions about labour and authority today?
These modern theories are not applied directly as models but are used as tools to help us think about ancient society. For example, when we talk about taxation nowadays, in a few words, it means the imposition of taxes on households and businesses by the government. The concept of informal taxation is understood as how a community or society contributes not directly to the government, but somehow, the money eventually reaches the public goods and services. However, in ancient times, there was no state or government as we think of it today, but we know the kingship and taxes operated Therefore, we create hypotheses to explain what was produced, how wealth was made, and how resources were allocated.
Another instance is when we consider Bourdieu’s theory and understanding of society. We don’t apply his theory directly, but we see that society works in a way where individuals make decisions in daily life – not random choices, but ones that make sense within their world. For example, if you earn 4,000 euros a month, you wouldn’t plan your life as if you earned 400,000 euros; you will spend the salary in a way that makes sense to the world you belong. In this framework, we ask what was possible in ancient times. What kind of decisions did people make, considering their reality and resources? We can think creatively and adapt these tools to study modern societies. Balancing these perspectives is not always easy, but it is a necessary part of the process of interdisciplinary research.
WORK-IT highlights the social structures behind taxation and labour in ancient temple systems. How does Ezra-Nehemiah fit into this broader picture?
This is what I am trying to understand in my research right now. When we talk about social structures in Ezra and Nehemiah, what immediately stands out is the context of exile. These books tell the story of a people who were sent into exile and are now returning to their land with the opportunity to rebuild everything from scratch. That return is a moment of intense social and political negotiation. You have this returning group, who lived in Babylon or elsewhere, meeting the locals who stayed behind. It's not a simple homecoming.
Think of contemporary migrants: when a person leaves their homeland and returns later, they imagine returning to something familiar. But the reality is that the person and those who remained in the place have changed. The memories that some had of others are no longer the same. The world isn’t exactly the one they remember. The person who returns bring new experiences and worldviews, which often lead to a revaluation of their identity, values, and beliefs. The question is: what is next?
This return involves a clash of expectations in Ezra-Nehemiah, especially around religion and community life. What complicates things further is that the returning group is now under the Persian imperial administration. They come back with a new understanding of imperial politics, bureaucracy, and power structures. So, they must navigate two systems simultaneously: the expectations of the Persian empire and the lived realities and plans of the local population.
That’s where the temple becomes central. We tend to assume that the use of its space for rituals is relevant only to religious practices. However, we could ask about the management of the offerings and sacrifices, the storage, consumption, and distribution of and food in general. Rebuilding the temple and the city walls means organizing labour. They need builders, materials, and suppliers. So, who are the workers? Who supplies the materials? How are these relationships negotiated? These texts reveal that every aspect of this new life required negotiation – over labour, resources, and identity. Negotiation is a key element of the social structure we observe in Ezra-Nehemiah.
If you could sit down with a historical figure from the period you study, who would it be and what would you ask them?
If you asked me which historical figure from the period I study, I would want to meet, I would say no one.
This is because I enjoy reading the texts. My challenge is to understand the texts and explore their world rather than to live their lives or meet the people. The texts reveal the world where they were produced and instigate my imagination to recreate and make sense of the stories. It is amazing to think that the Bible has been standing for centuries, and millions of people circulate around it, trying to make sense of the stories. In this sense, the past assumes a form that has significance in the present for its readers. So, during the research I read Ezra-Nehemiah and learn what it meant to other researchers and their world.
In our final post before the summer break, Daniele Soares returns to explore how temple work in Ezra–Nehemiah blurs the lines between sacred service and socioeconomic obligation. What counts as “volunteering” when labour is expected, informal, or imperial? Join us as we rethink categories like duty, work, and worship through the lens of ancient texts.