sql syntax errors

We found lots of little errors in tons of posts on our blog. Quotation marks were replaced with all kinds of funky characters. Rather than try to go back and edit hundreds of posts we decided to run a backup of the database and make the corrections there using search and replace. Then we took the wp_posts section and attempted to replace that table with the edited version. Pasting the whole thing into the sql edit box we ended up with tons of syntax errors. Of course we’d already let the query delete and recreate the table to the only complete version is on my machine but I can’t seem to get more than a few posts back up without syntax errors.

How can I have syntax errors when it is just a copy of the original database to begin with and what can I do? It’s going to take me weeks to get it all back up doing 2-3 posts at a time.