Direct answer: The Bible was written by many authors over a span of roughly 1,000 to 1,500 years, with authors including prophets, kings, poets, priests, and apostles. God is believed by believers to be the ultimate source of its message, guiding the human authors as they wrote. In short, its composition involved a broad group of human writers under divine inspiration. Key points to understand:

• Human authorship: The Bible contains writings attributed to numerous individuals, such as Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel in the Old Testament, and the gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, plus various apostles and early Christian leaders in the New Testament. The mix spans genres like law, history, poetry, wisdom literature, prophecy, gospel narratives, letters, and apocalyptic writing.
• Divine guidance: Most religious traditions that revere the Bible hold that God inspired or sovereignly superintended the process so that the writings convey God’s message, even though the human authors expressed their own styles and perspectives.
• Canon development: Over centuries, religious communities discussed which writings faithfully reflected that message and would be considered authoritative scripture. This process led to the established collections we call the Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) and the New Testament in Christian traditions.

If you’d like, I can tailor this to a specific tradition (e.g., Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or Jewish perspectives) and summarize how each views authorship and canon formation.