Jeshua ben Judah (ישועה בן יהודה), also known as Abu al-Faraj Furqan ibn Asad (أبو الفرج فرقان بن أسد), was a Karaite Jewish scholar, exegete, and philosopher who lived in the eleventh-century in the Abbasid Caliphate, in Lower Mesopotamia or in Jerusalem.
Among these was a Rabbinite from Castile named Sidi ibn Ibrahim al-Taras, who, after having accepted the Karaite teachings, returned to his native country, where he organized a powerful propaganda by circulating Jeshua's writings.
Jeshua wrote two other Biblical works, an Arabic commentary on the Ten Commandments, which he reproduced in an abridged form, and a philosophical midrash entitled Bereshit Rabbah, in which he discusses, in the spirit of the Mutazilite kalam, creation, the existence and unity of God, the divine attributes, etc.
A fragment of a Hebrew translation of the abridged commentary on the Ten Commandments made by Tobiah ben Moses under the title Pitron 'Aseret ha-Debarim is still extant in manuscript ("Cat.
Passages from it are frequently quoted by Aaron ben Elijah in his Etz Hayyim, and by Abraham ibn Daud, who in his Sefer ha-Qabbalah calls it a blasphemous work.
Jeshua was also the author of the following philosophical treatises, probably translated from the Arabic: Marpe la-'Etzem, in twenty-five short chapters, containing proofs of the creation of the world, of the existence of God, and of His unity, omniscience, and providence (MS. Paris No.
686); "Meshibot Nefesh," on revelation, prophecy, and the veracity of the Law; and three supplementary chapters to Joseph ben Abraham ha-Ro'eh's "Sefer Ne'imot" ("Cat.