In Genesis, God is most often called "God Almighty". The Hebrew word for this is "El-Shaddai". In point of fact, in Exodus 6 we are told that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew God by the name El-Shaddai, but that to Moses God was giving His true Name, the Name by which the Israelites are to know Him from that time onward (more on this in a future post).
But El-Shaddai is a word with a vague and complicated history, and the translation "Almighty" is a best approximation. There are several ancient semitic words that may be the foundation for the name El-Shaddai. The word is most commonly translated "The God of the Mountains". In the ancient world, mountains were often associated with great power, and with Divinity. It may have to do with the fact that before the building of Solomon's Temple, God was understood to reside on mountains (Sinai, for instance).
The translation "God of the Mountains" actually has an etymological connection to yet another translation, "The Breasted Lord". The word Shaddai has some similarity to the Hebrew word for nursing breasts. On this translation, the name El-Shaddai indicates a God of life, or even fertility. Much of the early Hebrew religious experience was about contrasting the religion of life, which Judaism represented, with the religion of death of the Egyptians. John Cobb, Jr. combines the two translations and has said that a proper translation would be something like "The God of the Two Mountains" or "The God of the Grand Tetons", for those who can grasp the latter idiom. One of the interesting theological consequences of rendering the name El-Shaddai as 'the Breasted Lord' is it emphasizes God as a sustainer, and really contains within it a maternal image.
Yet another translation renders the name Shaddai as 'Destroyer'. Here God would be closely associated with the forces that destroyed Sodom and Gammorah, and the 10th Plague that killed all the first born in Egypt. In point of fact, the translation "Almighty" is the result of combining the first translation (God of the Mountains) and the third (Destroyer), while more or less ignoring the second.
So here you have two very different visions of the role and character of God. On the one hand, the name might emphasize God as Life Incarnate, as sustainer and even mother. The second translation emphasizes Power and Control as primary to the nature of God. This vision is also much more fatherly, I think.
Which translation is correct? Well that depends on how you weigh the following evidence, I think. In Genesis 17:11, 28:3, and 35:11, the first three places we find the name El-Shaddai, El-Shaddai is closely associated with making someone 'fruitful' and promising 'descendants beyond number'. In other words, fertility. So in the earliest mentions we see God closely associated with life and life-giving, which all would tend us to think in terms of something like 'the nursing Lord'.
But when Abraham meets Melchizedek in Genesis 14, and Mel starts talking about "The God Most High" (El-Elyon), Abraham almost instantly identifies Mel's God with the El-Shaddai Abraham is familiar with. Now, why would the name "God Most High" be associated with El-Shaddai, in Abraham's mind? A likely answer is because Abraham thinks of El-Shaddai as "The God of the Mountains".
So it is unclear which translation is the correct one. I'm apt to think with John Cobb Jr. that both "God of the Mountains" and "The Breasted Lord" are correct, while rejecting completely the association with 'Destroyer', (though I'll admit there are some good etymological reasons for rendering it the third way as well). But neither of these translations forces me to see coercive power as the primary characteristic of God. For a God of the Mountains is to my mind "High and Raised Up" and yet a breasted Lord is "Life-Giving and Sustaining". Neither of these conflicts with my own view of God. For God remains in my view Ultimate Reality. Nothing is greater than God. That greatness, however, is found in His Love, His Humility, and His Goodness. God is qualitatively transcendent over us, greater than anything we can imagine. But our normal definition of greatness is wrong. God is 'beyond' in the sense of being Infinite Love. Is not calling God Infinite Love to honor Him has "high and raised up"? I think so. For all these reasons, I feel comfortable calling God "Almighty" so long as I understand that it is simply a stand-in for one of His Holy Names, El-Shaddai
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