Because of several identified chronological issues and numerous logical incongruities pointed out by historians over the years, its reliability as a historical source has been strictly scrutinized by experts in the field.

[29] This attribution is based on the fact that the Laurentian text ends on page 286, lines 1 to 7, with the colophon "I wrote down (napisakh) this chronicle",[29][f] after which he requests the readers to remember him in their prayers.

[29] Alternately, the real author may have been some other unnamed monk from the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves mentioned in the title, and Sylvester completed his work, or was a very early editor or copyist of the PVL.

[29] Wladyslaw Duczko (2004) argued that one of the central aims of the Chronicle's narrative is to 'give an explanation how the Rurikids came to power in the lands of the Slavs, why the dynasty was the only legitimate one and why all the princes should terminate their internal fights and rule in peace and brotherly love.

[31] Studies by Russian philologist Aleksey Shakhmatov and his followers have demonstrated that the PVL is not a single literary work but an amalgamation of a number of ancestors accounts and documents.

The six main manuscripts preserving the Primary Chronicle which scholars study for the purpose of textual criticism are:[10][g] The Laurentian Codex was compiled in Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal by the Nizhegorodian monk Laurentius for the Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1377.

[citation needed] The early part of the PVL features many anecdotal stories, among them: Women play a relatively minor role in the Primary Chronicle, usually only as the unnamed wife or daughter of a named man.

[50] Chronology of major events:[53][page needed] The Primary Chronicle is vibrant with Christian themes and biblical allusions, which are often said to reflect the text’s monastic authorship.

[citation needed] The Primary Chronicle traces the history of the Slavic people all the way back to the times of Noah, whose three sons inherited the Earth: The Varangians, the Swedes, the Normans, the Rus, and others were named as descendants of Japheth.

Their efforts became known in the realms of historical discipline as the “archaeology of the Korsun legend.”[64] This search culminated under Archbishop Innokentii's diocesan administration (1848–57), when in the ruins of Chersonesos, archaeologists unearthed the foundations of three churches and determined that the one containing the richest findings was allegedly used for the baptism of the Kievan Prince.

[64] In the early 1860s, the Eastern Orthodox Church began construction of The Saint Vladimir Cathedral in Chersonesos, which has been destroyed on three separate occasions after first being erected and was renovated each time thereafter.

It has been argued that by honoring Vladimir the Great and his contribution to the Eastern Orthodoxy, the cathedral serves the purpose of validating Russia's historical ties with the Crimean Peninsula, the accounts of which are preserved by the Chronicle.

The first doubts about trustworthiness of the narratives were voiced by Nikolay Karamzin in his History of the Russian State (1816–26), which brought attention to Nestor's questionable chronology and style of prose.

"[69] According to Aleksey Shakhmatov (1916), some of the incongruities are a direct result of the fact that "the ruling Princes of Kiev had their own propagandists who rewrote the annals to make political claims that best suited their own purposes.

"[71] The need to interpret the Chronicle, mentioned by Likhachov as essential to making sense of its narrative, stems from the facts that the text was initially compiled and edited by multiple authors with different agendas and that it had to be translated from Old East Slavic language, which proved to be an arduous task.

[71] Harvard linguist Horace G. Lunt (1988) found it important to "admit freely that we are speculating" when tales – such as Yaroslav the Wise being more than just "a patron of Slavonic books" – are reconstructed and the logical incongruities of the text are faced.

[72] Polish historian Wladyslaw Duczko (2004) concluded that the compiler of the Primary Chronicle 'manipulated his sources in the usual way: information that was not compatible was left aside, while the elements that should be there but did not exist, were invented.

'[31] Russian historian and author Igor Danilevsky mentioned that the Rus Primary Chronicle was more concerned with exploring the religious significance of the events rather than conveying to the reader the information about how it actually happened.

Tolochko argued that some of the tales, like the story of the Rurikid clan's entry into Kiev, were invented "so as to produce a meaningful reconstruction of past events and include these well-known names" in the author's "historical scenario.

"[74] Tolochko called the Rus Primary Chronicle an outstanding work of literature with an untrustworthy story and concluded that "there is absolutely no reason to continue basing our knowledge of the past on its content.

"[75] Paul Bushkovitch (2012) from Yale University writes “the author was serving his rulers, identifying princes and people and leaving historians with a muddle virtually impossible to sort out.”[76] He also mentions that there are discrepancies when overlapping Scandinavian history with the narrative of the Primary Chronicle.

For example, “archeological evidence does not fit the legends of the Primary Chronicle” such as: “in Scandinavia itself, there were no sagas of Viking triumphs and wars in Russia to match those recounting the conquest of Iceland and the British Isles”.

[77] In 1930, Harvard professor Samuel Hazzard Cross published an English translation of the Laurentian Codex's version of the PVL under the title The Russian Primary Chronicle.