I think explanation 2, i.e. the concept of time being a consequence of the bigbang itself, is the prevailing belief in the scientific community. It this case, it would thus not make sense to talk about something "before the big bang".

south_korea_ln

Ask_SN

What was before the big bang?

Great job summarizing so many of the hypotheses and the formatting is so much nicer than I would have done.

I tend towards explanation 2. Time isn't what we conceive it as and the concept of "before the Big Bang" might just be incoherent.