The first volume, entitled Phaleg, seu de Dispersione Gentium et Terrarum Divisione Facta in Aedificatione Turris Babel ("Peleg or the Dispersion of Nations and the Division of Lands Made in the Building of the Tower of Babel"), was devoted to the Generations of Noah and the modern names of the tribes lists in Genesis 10.

Peleg was the first detailed analysis of the Generations of Noah since classical times, becoming – and remaining – the locus classicus for such scholarship.

[3] Canaan was the first full-length book devoted to the Phoenicians, creating a framework narrative for future scholars of a maritime-based trading society with linguistic and philological influence across the region.

The first two compare the Genesis story with Roman gods: Noah with Saturn, Canaan with Mercury, Nimrod with Bacchus, and Magog with Prometheus.

Bochart’s analysis of the Generations of Noah in Genesis 10 became very popular, and provided the inspiration for numerous works on the same topic in the following centuries.