Jon, what kind of backup do you have? Often it is the sql statements that would be needed to recreate the content of the site.
You could view them in a text editor to see what’s there. if you search for ‘posts’ for example you would find the insert statements to recreate the pages & posts. If you wish to see the website the way it was, you would also need the theme that was being used and any plugins that were being used, any media files and yes of course also a server (such as a XAMPP or WAMP setup) running wordpress. Then you rebuild the website.