One other fact is significant: the domestic feasts and sacrifices of single families, which in David's time must still have been general, gradually declined and lost their importance as social circles widened and life became more public.

Biography
Born at Hamelin in the Kingdom of Hanover the son of a Protestant pastor he studied theology at the University of Göttingen under Georg Heinrich August Ewald and became Privatdozent for Old Testament history there in 1870. Other works
A select list of his works are as follows:
De gentibus et familiis Judaeis (Göttingen 1870)
Der Text der Bücher Samuelis untersucht (Göttingen 1871)
Die Phariseer und Sadducäer a classic treatise upon this subject (Greifswald 1874)
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Berlin 1882; 3rd ed. 1901)
Reste arabischen Heidentums (1897)
Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz in its time the standard modern account of Umayyad history (1902) English translation The Arab Kingdom and its Fall (1927)
Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (1884–1899)
Medina vor dem Islam (1889)
new and revised editions of Friedrich Bleek's Einleitung in das Alte Testament (4–6 1878–1893).

Julius Wellhausen (May 17 1844 – January 7 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah.