Archaeological information:
"About twenty miles south-west of Jerusalem and ten miles west-north-west of Hebron, the government of Israel constructed a security road in 1961 to protect the border between Jordan and Israel. During the course of construction an ancient burial cave was uncovered on the eastern slope of Khirbet Beit Lei. The Israel Department of Antiquities excavated the cave during the month of June, 1961, under the direction of Jospeh Naveh, Professor of Archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They named the cave the "Jerusalem Cave" (Berrett, Lamar C. "The So-Called Lehi Cave" FARMS reprint. 1982, p. 1).
The LDS interest in the cave comes from both the Book of Mormon incident of the brothers hiding in the cave, as well as the particular graffiti on the walls of the cave. Three human figures are represented, as well as two very crude ships. The old inscriptions have been translated as:
"The mountains of Judah--
Yahveh (is) the God of the whole earth;
the mountains of Judah belong to
him, to the God of Jerusalem."
"The (Mount of) Moriah Thou has favoured,
the dwelling of Yah, Yahveh"
"(Ya)hveh deliver (us)!"
"Attempts to date the cave and its inscriptions have proved interesting. Paleography, the study of the form of letters, was of auxiliary value in drawing chronological conclusions concerning these inscriptions. The form of the letters varied greatly. "In view of the nature of the graffiti," says Naveh, "we assume that all the inscriptions and drawings belong to a short period of time, and they were incised by a number of persons...." He concludes that the form of the burial cave and the script are of the pre-exilic period, or prior to 587 B.C." (Berrett, p. 2).
The most fascinating interpretation of the graffiti comes from Frank Moore Cross, Jr. professor at Harvard University. Dr. Cross proposes a 600 B.C. date for the inscriptions, and notes: "It is very difficult to avoid the speculation that inscription A is the citation of a lost prophecy, and that it and its companion inscriptions were written by a refugee fleeing the Chaldeans who conquered Judah and destroyed the holy city in 587 B.C. Most documents, especially manuscripts and papyri, found in Palestinian caves were left behind by men in such circumstances. The same may be true of these graffiti. Perhaps such speculations are built on too flimsy a foundation of facts; at all events we should suppress the temptation to suggest that the oracle and the petitions may have been the work of a prophet or his amanuensis fleeing Jerusalem" (cited in Berrett, 198, p. 2-3).
Of course, while Dr. Cross suggests that we avoid the speculations, he completes it for us so that we are sure to consider it. Clearly the LDS community would be interested in a cave associated with the name Lei, containing inscriptions related to a fleeing prophet, and particularly noting sailing vessels. Have we found the cave the brothers hid in?
Probably not. There is not indication that the brothers knew that they would be embarking on a sea journey at the time they returned for the brass plates. The inscriptions of the Jerusalem cave might be from a fleeing prophet, but that would describe Lehi, not his sons, and it was his sons who were in the cave.
In spite of the fact that the chances of having found the very cave of the brothers is so slight, the cave is nevertheless very instructive of the times. Certainly it indicates that the act of hiding in a cave was a known tradition. At the very least, it places Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi in very good ancient company.