The Bible and modernity

…already by the end of the 19C it was widely understood that the earth was "the product of a historical process that could no longer be described in the terms and by the data available from Scripture, I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 404.

That's misleading. On the one hand the Bible is not an encyclopedia, so it doesn't go into scientific detail. That's different from the charge that Genesis is inconsistent with earth sciences. 

[Aubrey Moore 1848-1890] We are as little prepared to consult Genesis on the order of the paleontological series as to ask the high priests of modern science to solve for us the difficulties of our moral and spiritual life, I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 407.

Although Moore was a Victorian Anglo-Catholic priest and theistic evolutionist, this is still a popular strategy for avant-garde Christians of the BioLogos stripe. But it suffers from internal tensions. It posits a dualism between the physical side of things and man's moral and spiritual life. But if you grant the autonomy of science, then science will erode that dualism by defining human origins, nature, and destiny. Secular science will say that the difficulties of our so-called spiritual life aren't spiritual at all, but reducible to hormones and brain chemistry. At bottom it's all biological and physiological. Likewise, what we call morality are the residual instincts of the predatory social animals from which we descend. And that's a problem when you take man out of the jungle or savannah and give him a desk job.  

This brings us, second, to the question of the limitations under which the author of Gen 1-11 is operating…Inevitably they must include limitations of knowledge; it is not at all likely that he knew about black holes, red dwarves, or quantum mechanics…our biblical authors might inevitably have had to embed their radical propositions about reality in a narrative that truly reflects the time and culture of its origin and truly speaks the language of its day… I. Provan, The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor 2017), 431.

i) It's true that the target audience's level of understanding can impose limitations on what an author is able to communicate. 

ii) The Bible is written for earthlings. And it has a practical aim. You don't need to be an electrician to use a light switch. So even if the Genesis narrator had advanced knowledge of physics and astronomy, there's no reason why any of that would figure in a creation account. The account is naturally geared to things human beings experience. Things at an observable scale. Things they have some control over. Things that have a discernible impact on their lives. The creation account is not inaccurate because it fails to delve into irrelevant scientific details about many things outside the range of reader's empirical awareness or control.

iii) If evolution is true, it's quite possible to write an evolutionary narrative in popular language, imagery, and metaphors. So the fact that Gen 1-2 narrate divine creation in terms of fiat creation and special creation can't be chalked up to the inevitable limitations under which they labored.