@BradKramer
Think of the example of the Flood. If the authors were drawing on an ancient belief in a global historical flood, and yet the Flood was in fact a local event, is the Bible lying to us?
In my opinion the author or more likely authors of Genesis were “historians,” and what historians do is work with historical sources. When they wanted to understand the past they looked to the best source of that information, which for them was the ancient middle eastern Semitic culture this of course was the culture of Abraham.
The problem was that this culture was pagan, rather than Yahwist. Therefore the role of the Hebrew historian was to see the known history through their faith, which they did very well. Thus we should say that the important thing about Genesis is not what happened, but the role of God in history.
The purpose of God’s word is not to convey Truth as historical facts, but to convey Truth as the God Who acts in and through history.
God uses the story of the Flood to reveal Godself to the Hebrews and us, and since this is the purpose of the Bible, it is not a lie, even though historically there was no universal flood.
God uses people as they are and stretches them to what they can become. The Bible is not perfect in every way, just the most important way, which shows how much God cares for humans, Again the Bible is not a book of science or history, but a book of God’s revelation of Godself.