What he's looking for, of course, is the least layered interference of authorial intent, which is very hard to find. I don't disagree with his intention or his desire, but I think this just seems like a specialized way of going towards textualism, just a specific aspect of that. And I get it, translation is hard to find. But how can you ever know what the "truest" or "best" translation is (and here I'm talking about the whole, was this person a lover, did they live with him, etc, etc) without knowing the true intent of the author, you know? Maybe it's less important that it was a woman who slept with him and more important it was a man from the same socio-cultural standing.

Mmmm... Belgian ales...