Vs 1 covers all of time.
vs 2 covers some unknown time before day 1 and the conditions it identifies persist into at least half of day 1 since "evening and morning" were the first day.
My view is quite simple on the details ... any interpretation of the creation account is ultimately opinion. I say this only because OT scholars, theologians, Hebrew professors, etc. disagree on the details with substantive support ... but not on God as creator. There are disagreements on the meaning of "evening" and "morning" - not being a Hebrew/Greek Scholar I simply try and digest to consider. So the consecutive waw indicates that we have - God's command - evening as command conclusion - and the morning starts a new day... again not a Hebrew scholar, but it was written by one.
So one considers Gen. 1:1-2 as part of day 1, while another disagrees and points, for example, to "bara" - which is only used in Gen.1:1. Subsequent to Gen.1:1 other terms are used asaph, yatzar (which is parenthetical), and kun. Further, Gen.1:1-2 is in the perfect tense and from Gen. 1:3 on the imperfect tense is used- thus ongoing action, and perhaps that could be argued. Further still, there are arguments surrounding chronological consequence and logical consequence based on "evening and morning...I will leave that for others to debate.
Then too there exist distinctions as to the nature of Genesis 1 purely historical, allegory, poetry. As an example there are Hebrew scholars that argue Gen.1 is not typical Hebrew poetry but neither is it normal Hebrew prose. Thus to some scholars there are some elements/fragments of poetry though overall it is predominately, but not normal, prose.
As to 6 days - Exodus 20:11, etc. - one can call it a "week" (which nowhere is stated as such in the Bible) or one could easily call it a model for the term "week". Agreeing that the sole operative agency was "And God said,..." so that these commands/fiats required no further action or agency therefore obviously anything that would follow the command must be explanatory. So we see in Genesis that God commands agency to the land/water to produce-bring forth....only in verse 3 is immediacy stated "And God said, let there be light and there was light". Subsequent to that one will note that all commands become mediate... thus for example in verse 24 the fiat is directed to the land. Note that the passage states "And God said, Let the land produce ..." what the passage does not say is "And God said, Let there be living creatures, and there were living creatures". Clearly the command is directed to the land, a mediate agency empowered by God, and so the designated day is reference to the command/fiat. Thus the Genesis account for the most part (sans vs. 3) does not force a time element on the command...because it doesn't. (Of course the creation of fish and birds is also questioned as to Ge. 1:20)
Again, the simple point should be humility and not entrenched dogma because God did not choose to offer us an incontrovertible narrative. I suppose the only reason I approached this thread was because I simply can not believe that people actually believe in the "appearance of age"/Omphalus thing...when it first came out not only was it soundly rejected by scientists but Christians too overwhelmingly dismissed it as nonsense.
We know "In the beginning God created..." and beyond that the specifics are a very murky affair ... fun to discuss, defend one's perspective, and debate but ultimately foolish to be too dogmatic.
