I would be interested in reading the responses from others, but I would say - absolutely and certainly to OP's question.

One of the greatest misunderstanding of pre-conversion European belief systems is grounded on two misunderstandings. The first is that religions do not change. While religions grounded on a written text are tethered to a certain extent, even they change over time. Belief systems without a written text change radically over time.

The second misunderstanding is related to the first, but it specifically involves the anachronistic projection backward in time of an idea of what a religion is in the twenty-first century, applying that understanding of an institution onto a pre-conversion belief system. The result is to see that belief system in an epic struggle with Christianity for primacy, and it makes that belief system into something that is monolithic - singular in belief and practice.

In reality, pre-conversion belief systems were fluid and not monumental. Beliefs were certainly different from place to place, from generation to generation, and from person to person. Using the analogy of what folklorists observed working with pre-modern European informants and their attitudes toward the fairy faith, for example, beliefs could even change as a person became older. Belief systems were extremely difficult to define and describe when they lacked a rigid book and a central "government" - for lack of a better word (referring to the Vatican or similar patriarchal locations).

In short, any singular source about a pre-conversion belief system will have a natural and obvious slant and/or bias, and this is certainly true of the Icelandic material. Since it remains by far the best source about the pre-conversion Scandinavian belief system, it is extremely valuable, but we must use source criticism when using it.

Paging /u/Eyestache, /u/textandtrowel and /u/itsallfolklore

There is definately a lot of bias.

The main reason for the preservation in Iceland for more then two centuries into christianity is due to poetry. A pagan tradition of poetry survived, which relies a lot on knowledge of pagan mythology to be deciphered or understood, which is why knowledge of the mythology was passed on.

An obvious example of this bias is that Snorri claims that Odin was the high god. Other sources, place names or archeology strongly suggest that Icelanders and Norwegians at the time mostly worshipped Thor. However, Odin was the god of poetry, and is by far the most mentioned god in poets.