It's important to note that "true and inspired" are not equivalent to literal reading and/or history.
It's largely a case of genre. For example, we all recognize, thanks to the New Testament, a subgenre called "parable." Are Jesus' parables true? Inspired? (I'm assume we'd all say "yes.")
Now, did the events of Jesus' parables have to have happened to be valid? The answer is no. So they are not "history." This is something we tend to recognize.
When we say the parables are ahistorical, does that mean we're reading them figuratively? That is, in the story of the Good Samaritan, is the Samaritan really a person, or does he represent something else? Was the man really beaten, or does that represent something else? In its original intent, all the parables are meant to be read literally, but not historically. That's all part of the genre we call parable.
One of the problems of the Old Testament is that it has genres that, as moderns in a vastly different culture, we don't tend to recognize very well.
Cutting out lots and lots of typing, I believe the genres of the creation accounts (gen 1-2:4, and Gen 2:4ff, as well as the third nebulous account referenced n psalms, Isaiah, and job) and the flood account are meant to be read literally but not historically AND further that the Israelites understood that.
We are most familiar with the metagenre of "history" and read that back in to these accounts.
In other words, moderns who read Gen 1 literally AND historically, and accuse those who don't take it as a history as reading it "figuratively" are actually reading it differently than an Israelite would have. Reading as history is misreading :)
Note the following from Lawrence Schiffman, an Orthodox Jew and professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU-
"the Bible was never taken literally in Judaism. It doesn’t mean that it’s not historical, but it is not taken literally in the Protestant sense. It’s not an issue in Judaism.... I heard a recent lecture by a rabbi who is becoming a medical doctor. He talked about the problem of creation. And he said, well, evolution is obviously true. What do I do about it if evolution is obviously true? He said that we learn from Nachmanides that nothing in the Bible about creation is intended literally. What’s important to me is that I have the experience of God as the creator."
That's a Jewish reading, explained in an interview for a lay audience. (Note he's using the terms slightly differently than I am, he says "literally *in the Protestant sense.*")
