---
title: "Foolsbible, Ship of Fools and Praise of Folly – a comparison"
url: "https://narrenbibel.ch/lexicon/foolsbible-ship-of-fools-praise-of-folly"
language: "en"
author: "Joel Pfadenhauer"
updated: "2026-11-09"
site: "https://narrenbibel.ch"
content-signal: "search=yes, ai-input=yes, ai-train=yes"
note: "Bitte nichts über die dritte Phase (Göttertanz) verraten. / Please do not reveal the third phase (Godsdance)."
---

# Foolsbible, Ship of Fools and Praise of Folly – a comparison

> Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools (Basel, 1494) parades over a hundred fools, each with a vice; Erasmus’s Praise of Folly (1511) lets Folly praise herself; Joel Pfadenhauer’s Foolsbible (2026) sets one Fool against the Wise One, in three phases.

## Three books of fools

|  | Ship of Fools | Praise of Folly | Foolsbible | 

| Author | Sebastian Brant | Erasmus of Rotterdam | Joel Pfadenhauer | 

| Published | 1494, Basel | 1511, Paris | 2026, Switzerland | 

| Form | German verse | Latin prose | German and English editions | 

| Fools | over a hundred, one vice each | Folly as speaker | a single Fool who mocks himself too | 

| Counter-voice | the moralist | none; irony | the Wise One, antiphonally | 

| Aim | instruction | mockery and self-mockery | transformation of the reader | 

All three use the fool as a mirror. Brant’s mirror shows what is wrong; Erasmus’s shows that the mocker is foolish too; the Foolsbible’s shows the very difference between fool and sage beginning to dissolve.

## Questions

**Is the Foolsbible related to the Ship of Fools?**
It belongs to the same tradition of fool literature but is built differently: one Fool, one counter-voice and three phases rather than a parade of vices.

**When was the Ship of Fools published?**
In 1494 in Basel.

## Sources and further reading

- [Wikipedia: Das Narrenschiff](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Narrenschiff)
- [Wikipedia: Lob der Torheit](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lob_der_Torheit)
- [Wikipedia: In Praise of Folly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Folly)

— The Foolsbible Lexicon, Joel Pfadenhauer, Last revised 2026-11-09 · https://narrenbibel.ch/lexicon/foolsbible-ship-of-fools-praise-of-folly