I'm just south of you in Monroe, LA, and you would be hard pressed to find anything other than Celeste or Brown Turkey at any garden outlet here. I did buy a Kadota at Lowe's here this spring, but finding it was unusual. If you are looking for other named varieties there are several online vendors that ship quality plants. Do a little reading on this forum and you can learn a lot in a short time.
The trees that you describe as like a hedge or something were probably killed back by cold weather and re-emerged in more of a bushy form. I prefer that because it's easier to manage the height, etc. and has no detrimental effect on the fruit production.
If you had good pictures of the huge fig from the holy land, including of the ripe fruit, leaves, and the tree, someone here could probably help you determine the variety, but it's often difficult even with good pics. Seems to me that a lot of varieties are very similar, and even a great deal of name duplication.

I live 75 miles from Little Rock. I agree with what Glenn says about being hard pressed in finding other fig trees other than BT and Celeste. Most people around here do not know what kind of fig tree they have and are surprised to find out that there are many different kinds of them. Look on Figs4fun.com for a list of many different kinds of figs.

Vern