The brothers are forced to flee again. They do not even hide in the city, but leave the city and, somewhere in the wilderness, hide in a cave. Again, assuming Nephi’s scribal training, it is probable that Nephi saw himself in the light of Isaiah 2:10: “Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty.” Of course, they hid for fear of Laban, not of the Lord, but they were on Jehovah’s mission, hiding for fear in a cave. The reason for Isaiah’s reference is that there are a number of caves in Palestine, which have historically been used as places of temporary sanctuary.
A 1961 excavation uncovered a cave tomb that has been named Khirbet Beit Lei, or the ruins of the House of Lei. There were carvings on the wall which held a poem to Jehovah, and had drawings of ships. One scholar, Joseph Naveh, dated the inscriptions to before 587 B.C. The eminent scholar Frank Moore Cross suggested that the inscription was from a refugee. All those things are tantalizingly close to the story that Nephi tells. Unfortunately, the finer details make it impossible that this cave had anything to do with Nephi and his brothers.
BYU scholar Dana Pike notes that the tomb is too far from Jerusalem to have been the brothers’ refuge. There is no indication that it was known at that time that they would be required to travel by sea; so, while we know that they did, they would not have known to draw the ships. Finally, the destruction of Jerusalem would have been the cause of a number of people fleeing, many of whom might have taken temporary shelter in this cave.
It is tempting, but there is insufficient evidence to link it to the Book of Mormon.