And embarrasses herself as usual. She starts by retracting her original claim and clumsily trying to cover it up.
If she does not 'say here or elsewhere that the bronze sculpture itself is a symbol of St. Peter', then she agrees with Ehrman.
We are then subjected to the typical level of Dorothy Murdock 'scholarship' so fawned over by her fans, which involves (wait for it), random searches through Google Books. It's hilarious that she even embeds the links to the books in question, so you can read the search terms she used. Even more hilarious is the fact that a number of these works are available only in limited, or even snippet view, so it's clear Murdock doesn't own them, hasn't read them, and is simply searching frantically through Google Books for any references to what she desperately wants to be true.
Let's just pause and dwell on that; random searching in Google Books and lifting out the occasional phrase, is what constitutes admirable 'scholarship' among Murdock's fans, apparently several levels of expertise above what people like Ehrman do. It reminds me of when I asked Neil Godfrey why he was convinced that Doherty's work was well researched; he replied that it has a lot of footnotes.
And after all Murdock's floundering, what do we get?
* The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects: cites a 19th century edition of the 18th century work of Knight, who makes reference to 'the celebrated bronze in the Vatican'; Knight says absolutely nothing about it being anything to do with Peter
* A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery: cites Fuchs, 'Gescichte der Erotischen Kunst' (1908); another work from over 100 years ago (you'll be seeing a pattern soon), and this source says nothing about the figure being anything to do with Peter
* Fuchs, 'Gescichte der Erotischen Kunst' (1908): still no modern independent scholarly witnesses, and Murdock's link doesn't even go to the page to which she refers (nor does she quote the text of the book)
* Privatisierung der Triebe? (1994): finally a modern scholarly source, but unfortunately it's not an independent witness; instead we have a reference to an 18th century engraving, the source of which is not identified (and this source says nothing about the figure being anything to do with Peter)
* The Secret Middle Ages: another modern scholarly source, but wait, it refers with due caution to the 'notorious Albani bronze
said to be held in the Vatican Museum'; alas, no evidence here (and this source says nothing about the figure being anything to do with Peter)
* Public Characters of 1803-1804: yes, another work from 200 years ago, and it cites an 17th century source, so again we have no independent verification here (and this source says nothing about the figure being anything to do with Peter); Murdock appears to be ignorant of the fact that the text she quotes actually originally appeared in several earlier works published in the 1760s
* Romanum Museum: this is the 17th century work cited previously; no reference whatever to Peter, of course, and no reference to it being kept in the 'secret Vatican Treasury' (perhaps Murdock thought that 'Romanum Museum' was a reference to the Vatican treasury?)
* The Miscellaneous Works of the Late Reverend and Learned Conyers Middleton: another 18th century work, no source cited for the image, no reference to the Vatican, no reference to Peter
* The Image of Priapus: yet another work relying on the 17th century source 'Romanum Museum', and another reference to Knight's work, but no reference to Peter or the Vatican
* Sex and Sex Worship (Phallic Worship): A Scientific Treatise on Sex: here's the first actual photo we have (in a book published in 1922), and yet it isn't the bronze image Murdock has been talking about, though she still claims this is 'a photograph of what appears to be the original bronze statue (or at least its twin)'; the book itself says this is a depiction of Priapus (nothing to do with Peter), was found 'in an ancient Greek temple', and of course says nothing about it being in the Vatican
* Studies in Iconography: claims 'This object was published under papal and royal authority, exhibited for a time in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and is now
said to be held inaccessible in the secret collections of the Vatican'; note again the scholarly caution over the unsourced and unsubstantiated claim
And that's it. Yes that's all. Murdock has simply performed her typical 'research' of flailing around frantically in Google Books picking up any scraps she can find which might look like they're saying something similar to what she already believes, then throwing them together in a huge pile and hoping no-one actually takes the time to sift through it all to see that the original claim can be traced to basically two sources from 200-300 years ago, that none of the sources cited makes the same claim she does, that virtually all of the sources disagree on various points, and that the only modern scholarly sources she quotes as referring to it, actually treat the 'Vatican' story cautiously as hearsay.
But wait, let's add another source to the mix, one which Murdock didn't quote; Panzanelli & Scholosser, 'Ephemeral bodies: wax sculpture and the human figure' (2008). This book
refers explicitly to the 'notorious "Vatican Bronze"' (p. 121), and the image is
the very image cited by Murdock (p. 122), yet when we turn to the page on which the statue is described (p. 122), we find this intriguing information.
Yes that's correct, this is 'a phallic monument
in the Gabinetto Segreto, Museo Archeologico Nazionale Napoli, supposedly recovered at Pompeii/Herculaneum'; Knight is cited. How interesting. No reference to Peter, and we finally find that the 'Secret Museum' referred to by our previous sources was
not the Vatican, but the Gabinetto Segreto in Naples, the collection of sexual and erotic artifacts found in Pompeii.
This is even more interesting since Pompeii was only excavated in the late 18th century, so 17th century sources such as 'Romanum Museum' (1692), couldn't possible be referring to the same artifact. So all those later works relying on the 17th sources as evidence for this artifact are wrong, and all those later works relying on 18th and 19th century sources claiming this is kept in the Vatican are also wrong. Naturally any sources claiming this has anything whatever to do with Peter, are also wrong; please note that despite all Murdock's sources, she didn't provide any which made such a connection.
Since Carrier accepted Murdock's reply to Ehrman on this point completely uncritically, now would be the ideal opportunity to 'Do a Carrier' (henceforth DaC); question their credentials, their research abilities, and ask 'If we can't trust them on a simple point like this, what can we trust them on, what other gross distortions of reality, glaring research errors, fatuous misclaims, ignorant statements, and wild inaccuracies are all their works filled with?'.