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This thesis seeks to determine how Luke treats the motif of women disciples in his gospel. The research hypothesis is as follows: Luke presented women of the Jesus movement as full disciples. In doing so, he was opening new avenues to women in his community. The main method used for analysing the biblical texts is redaction criticism, understood from a compositional perspective, e.g. looking to identify the theological intentions underlying the lukan redaction, in the revision of his sources as well as in his original compositions. Such a use enables us to demonstrate that redaction criticism, combining historical framework and narrative and theological coherence, remains inescapable for modern exegesis. The main method is coupled with an additional one, the socio-critical approach: this one helps to circumscribe the social-symbolical universe as well as the individuals' functioning and the institutions of the first century, where the Jesus movement, the first Christian communities and the gospels were born. The thesis is divided in three parts. The first presents the sociological and communal background that surrounded the writing of the lukan work. The first chapter explains some sociological dynamics of the 1st century, which are important to fully understand the studied pericopes. The second one paints a portrait of women's condition in Palestine and in the Greco-roman world at that time, in social as well as religious areas. The third chapter tries to define the lukan community as a whole, with special attention to the place women might have occupied in it, while presenting some reading keys of lukan theology. The second part presents, in four chapters, the detailed exegetical analysis of four texts featuring some women disciples: the women following Jesus (Lk 8, 1-3); the women witnessing crucifixion (Lk 23, 49); the women at the tomb (Lk 23, 55-24, 11); and the visit of Jesus at Martha's and Mary's home (Lk 10, 38-42). These studies show that Luke is an evangelist who boosted the women disciples' commitment within the Jesus movement and the community of the time while respecting the limits of his background and his culture as to the proper place and role for women in the public sphere, in order not to compromise the Gospel's transmission. The third part, divided in two chapters, offers a synthesis of the data and a hermeneutical reflection. This synthesis, while recalling the data stemming from exegetical analysis, supports the conclusions of the second part, by evoking a reconstruction of the first years of primitive Christianity, a period for which Luke tries to account theologically in his Acts of the Apostles . The hermeneutic proposes that the living and fruitful link established by Luke between his tradition and his culture can be useful for the Catholic Church today, helping it revitalise some of its positions, especially in disciplinary, theological and ethical areas. Key-words: Bible - New Testament - Gospel of Luke - Acts of the Apostles - women - disciples - feminism - redaction criticism - socio-critical approach - beginnings of Christianity.
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