Here' how I see it:
Genesis 1 is an Outline of ALL of the events leading to the Creation of the Perfect Heaven. Most of the rest of the Bible refers to the present 6th Day, but ALL of the Bible refers to the events of God's 6 Creative Days. That's why we are taken back to the 3rd Day at Gen 2:4. The narrative is adding details to the events listed in Gen 1. Both accounts Gen 1 & 2 agree totally and in detail.
Since God sees the end from the beginning, Isa 46:10 He wrote the complete HISTORY of His Seven Days in the first 34 verses of Genesis. At Gen 2:4 the narrative RETURNS to the details of the THIRD Day.
[Isa 46:10 KJV] 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times [the things] that are not [yet] done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
In other words, the first 34 verses of Genesis tell us the ENTIRE History of God's 7 Days of Creation, including events which will NOT happen until AFTER Jesus returns to this Planet. Gen 1:28-31.
Here’s a brief summary of how I read the first five verses of the the Book of Genesis - The Beginning:
Genesis 1:1 Is a Preface or Summary - The Story of the Beginning of the Physical World
Genesis 1:2 Tells us the condition of the deep - empty / void - before the making of the physical world.
Genesis 1:3 The bringing forth of the LIGHT before anything is made that was made.... before the world was.
Genesis 1:4 The division of light from darkness - the first work of old.
Genesis 1:5 The evening and the morning the first day of creation.
As you can see, based on the above perspective of the cited texts, our physical heaven and earth that we know of today is still formless and void on the 1st Day of Creation. The 1st formation of the firmament of Heaven took place on the 2nd Day - Gen 1:6-8. The Earth was formed/made on the 3rd Day.
Your thought…..
God bless
The main problem with discussing Genesis is connected to most people barking up the wrong tree and thereby drawing the wrong conclusions. If you bark up the wrong tree, and there is no squirrel in that tree, does that mean that the squirrel did not exist? The analogy of discussing Genesis, is like using the valid science observations of cosmology, and then assume this is referring to the ocean. This wrong tree for the data would make even the science of cosmology appear like mythology.
Darkness and light; let there be light, are metaphors for the unconscious and conscious minds, respectively. It is not coincidence that the time line of Genesis; based on science and carbon dating, coincides with the formation of the first stable civilizations and the invention of writing. A new heaven; unconscious firmware, and earth; ego, is connected to changes in human consciousness and the unconscious psyche.
For humans to go from 1 million plus years of being migratory, hunters, gatherers and herders; natural instinct; evolution, to all the differences needed for stable civilization, something had to change in the brain and/or human psyche to make this possible. You cannot just go into the Amazon rain forest and take out a primitive tribe and expect them to form a modern country, unless the brain and psyche changed quickly. Everyone is assuming a materialistic explanation; cosmology of the ocean, thereby missing the boat. The change had less to due with biology, as it did with changes in the human psyche, that lead to profound changes in perception and human nature; Adam.
Genesis is symbolism that discusses the birth of the modern conscious mind ; ego, and the various changes in the brain's firmware that will power induced, from which a new type of human appears. Adam being formed from the dust of the earth shows this is not a biological change. Herdsmen understand how to make babies. If we do a scientific investigation of the earliest civilizations, there were no distinct differences in the human body, but there are many changes in terms of artifacts connected to behavior and invention.
As an analogy, say you had a computer that was programmed to do various tasks. It controls your house, your schedule and many other things, based on optimized factory settings; natural. One day you decide to add a secondary terminal; ego, that is connected and interacts with the first computer. The terminal has a high level of autonomy and can make choices, while being connected to the first computer's feedback system. The result is the original programming in the main frame, in terms of subroutines, will start to change, as choices from the terminal alter the original parameters; evolving a new heaven and earth. The change starts at fundamental levels; day 1, then get more specific as earlier changes take hold.
Mythology is a projection from the unconscious psyche. The characters and their activity are aspects of the firmware. As such, mythology maps out how the firmware of the unconscious mind at a particular point in time. As the firmware changes so will the mythology. For example, the characters of the Titan mythology where larger than life and very raw, similar to a wild spirit. The Olympians which supersede them are more humanistic. This reflects the evolution of the firmware, as a function of induced ego changes.
The story of Genesis is about when the ego terminal first appears, and starts to altered the natural cause and affect of the natural man, thereby altering the natural programming. The choice to eat of the forbidden tree shuts off conscious connection to the natural DNA firmware. This change is reflected in the evolving mythology and the various pitfalls discussed within later parts of Genesis. The ego's will and the changes within the the psyche does not always means for the best. This aspect of the story is the main problem for atheism. They prefer discount this message, by barking up the wrong tree. Willower has evolutionary advantages, but not all choices are progressive to the natural firmware. Religions are there to attempt to align chose with the needs of evolution in the natural firmware.