Creation & Cosmos; the Literal Values of Genesis

When the word was given for the Universe or what is known to mankind as a 'universe' to begin and 'there was light', what time values followed in the order of the creation and cosmos? Do the 'days' of Genesis represent time periods of uncertain extent in the form of literals as do algebraic literals represent variable numerical content? Progressive creationist investigations consider some of the Biblical meaning in the context of the indeterminacy of translation between mankind's scientific and philosophical weltanschauung of the era before Christ and today. Does Second Peter Chapter 3 exemplify the uncertainty? "8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The age of the antediluvian Patriarchs given this conversion value is 2,453,235,000 years. Paleontologists suggest that life on Earth started about 2,600,000,000 years before present.