Excellent mercygate, I know I had seen it someplace before
The purpose of Holy Scripture is the salvation of humankind. It was written by the inspired authors in order to reveal the Truths that God wished to reveal that are for our salvation It is not a history book or a science text. The human authors wrote, under divine inspiration in terms understandable to themselves and their contemporaries. This is why it is necessary to know the beliefs and practices of the culture at the time in order to understand what it is saying. For example. Why did Abraham see a goat cut in half and fire passing between the two halves. This is very significant in terms of the culture at that time. What is not significant the fact that this happened after the “sun had set in the west” when we know that scientifically it is the earth that moves and not the Sun. That fact is not pertinent to the Truths that are being revealed.
The thing is that Leo XIII, Pius XII, and Dei Verbum teach that the inerrancy cannot be limited to matters of faith and morals. In fact, I believe Leo XII actually mentions physical science and history specifically. In other words, you can’t limit the inerrancy to only the details pertinent to salvation. In fact, Leo XII explicitly condemns this.
“…Later on, this solemn definition of Catholic doctrine, which claims for these books in their entirety and with all parts a divine authority such as must enjoy immunity from any error whatsoever, was contradicted by certain Catholic writers who dared to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture to matters of faith and morals alone, and to consider the remainder, touching matters of the physical or historical order as obiter dicta and having (according to them) no connection whatsoever with faith. Those errors found their condemnation in the encyclical Providentissimus Deus…”