"Mosiah" as "Messiah"

Recently, I've been studying changes in the Book of Mormon text over time. I came across an interesting detail. In the original dictation, Nephi says:

16 And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw, yea, even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell.

17 And the mists of darkness are the temptations of the devil, which blindeth the eyes and hardeneth the hearts of the children of men and leadeth them away into broad roads that they perish and are lost.

18 And the large and spacious building which thy father saw is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible gulf divideth them, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record from the beginning of the world until this time and from this time henceforth and forever. (1 Nephi 12, Skousen's Earliest Text -- p. 264 of this link)

There are a few interesting points to make about this passage:

1. This highlights the value of studying the earliest manuscript.  I had previously presented a chart (here) with the frequency of four of the most common names for Jesus in the Book of Mormon. "Jesus Christ" showing up in 1 Nephi is certainly one additional outlier. 
2. Similar to Jacob's account in 2 Nephi 10, the sacred name of the "Lamb of God" is given to Nephi by an angel (note verse 16 -- he's quoting the angel). There is something special about angels delivering this knowledge to prophets.  This is a topic I'll dedicate an entire post to in the near future.
3. We can't overlook the obvious temple connections associated with verse 18. The "sword of the justice of the Eternal God and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God" is also described as "a great and terrible gulf." Later, Nephi describes this "justice of God" as "[bright] like unto the brightness of a flaming fire." A flaming sword dividing mortal man from the tree of life. (See here for details on how "sword" in the original became "word" in the modern version.)
4. Finally, we get to the point that became the title of this post. The printer's manuscript for verse 18 gives us a fascinating glance into the mind of Joseph Smith. Oliver Cowdery copied the entire manuscript to create the printer's manuscript. In 1837, Joseph reviewed it and made some changes for a new edition. In what is now verse 18, he crossed out "Jesus Christ which" and wrote in "Mosiah who" (see below from josephsmithpapers.org, I added the red and yellow highlighting).

Wait, Mosiah?

This raises a really interesting conundrum.  Why would Joseph change the name Jesus Christ to Mosiah?  It makes absolutely no sense to think Joseph Smith would confuse the Son of God with King Benjamin's son (or father). 

Skousen offers this explanation: 

Joseph Smith apparently pronounced Mosiah with the /s/, along with a reduced schwa vowel /ə/ for the first vowel; thus for him Mosiah and Messiah were homophonous (both pronounced /məsai.ə/). (Source: p. 265 at this link)

This is doubly odd since Joseph would have read the correct spelling of "Messiah" 9 times in the 4-5 preceding pages of the manuscript.  (Messiah appears 5 times on page 14 -- highlighted below -- and 3 times on page 15.) 

Whatever the case, Joseph's correction ended up in the 1837 edition and has stayed in place ever since. Here is the passage in the first edition (source):

Here is the change from the 1837 edition (source):

A note about how names were spelled

It seems abundantly clear from this that Joseph didn't have an advanced grasp on written English, even 8 years after the translation of the Book of Mormon. (In his defense, his handwriting shows serious signs of improvement since 1832.) And yet there are many obscure and complicated names which are consistently spelled correctly in the manuscript, such as Gidgiddoni, an authentic, obscure Neo-Assyrian name:

Here is Emma's recollection about her time as a scribe for her husband:

When my husband was translating the Book of Mormon, I wrote a part of it, as he dictated each sentence, word for word, and when he came to proper names he could not pronounce, or long words, he spelled them out, and while I was writing them, if I made a mistake in spelling, he would stop me and correct my spelling, although it was impossible for him to see how I was writing them down at the time. (Emma Smith, Edmund C. Briggs interview, 1856)

Conclusion:

This suggests to me that Joseph, while acting as seer, was assisted in his ability to spell unusual names far beyond his natural ability. It also seems if Joseph secretly worked from notes or an early draft he had created prior to 1828-1829, he went to great lengths to conceal any natural spelling skills he would have acquired in the process.