RE: Tough questions on Science and the Bible - understanding how the Bible was written

Thanks for tackling this @gavvet. It's a great topic.

While the Bible as a whole isn't any one literary structure, it is in segments. And many authors did write for specific purposes, such as recording history. The books of Kings, Chronicles and both books by Luke are written as historical documents. Kings and Chronicles were written from two different perspectives, providing a somewhat unbiased and sometimes incredibly honest look at the kings of Judah and Israel. While Scriptural, they are historical documents. Luke wrote to provide an account to Theophilus, which he states in both of his books.
Other books provide history, but mix more doctrine and specific teaching. This is particularly true of the pentateuch. And some don't really use devices like chiasms and parallelism, except maybe in specific quotes.
These unique variables within the Bible, written by some 40 authors at various times and exposing their personalities while maintaining their complementary nature and avoiding contradiction, is what makes the Bible both a whole unit and individual ones. And it dictates that some genres be handled differently than others. A great example would be the contrast between how we apply Proverbs and something more didactic/doctrinal, like one of Paul's epistles.
Specifically on the origins discussion, any perspective that defies the simple wording of the creation account is like pulling on a thread in an expensive wool sweater. Eventually the entire structure will fall apart.
The language of Genesis 1 is very clear. And the word for day (yom), if it is modified, never means anything other than a solar day. In the creation account, it is very clearly modified, in two different ways - by the day number and by evening and morning.
Perhaps more importantly, you cannot have original sin if you do not have a literal creation. Death entered the world through sin. Evolution demands death from the first spark of life until the first biped, destroying the very concept of original sin and it's implications. Without original sin, there is no atonement, imputation and salvation become a abstract ideas fit only for philosophers, since it no longer is truly a theological construct.
While I consider the last point the most important, and the prior one irrefutable, from a biblical perspective, from a scientific one, there is no proof of evolution. There is only conjecture. Sure, scientists have provided idea after idea. But, while they'd like to say there is a missing "link", the fact is that there is no real link at all. There's a huge gap that they can only propose ideas to cover. And their ideas are constantly being proven false, because they are just that, ideas - with no truly historical or scientific basis.
Obviously you'll provide your findings from your perspective. Maybe (or maybe not :) ) the challenges I've laid out will be of some use. I look forward to your insights.